Süleyman'ın Özdeyişleri 27:9 Yorum

Here is, 1. A good caution against presuming upon time to come: Boast not thyself, no, not of tomorrow, much less of many days or years to come. This does not forbid preparing for tomorrow, but presuming upon tomorrow. We must not promise ourselves the continuance of our lives and comforts till tomorrow, but speak of it with submission to the will of God and as those who with good reason are kept at uncertainty about it. We must not take thought for the morrow (Mat 6:34), but we must cast our care concerning it upon God. See Jam 4:13-15. We must not put off the great work of conversion, that one thing needful, till tomorrow, as if we were sure of it, but today, while it is called today, hear God's voice. 2. A good consideration, upon which this caution is grounded: We know not what a day may bring forth, what event may be in the teeming womb, of time; it is a secret till it is born, Ecc 11:5. A little time may produce considerable changes, and such as we little think of. We know not what the present day may bring forth; the evening must commend it. Nescis quid serus vesper vehat - Thou knowest not what the close of evening may bring with it. God has wisely kept us in the dark concerning future events, and reserved to himself the knowledge of them, as a flower of the crown, that he may train us up in a dependence upon himself and a continued readiness for every event, Act 1:7.

Here is, 1. A charge given to be faithful and constant to our friends, our old friends, to keep up an intimacy with them, and to be ready to do them all the offices that lie in our power. It is good to have a friend, a bosom-friend, whom we can be free with, and with whom we may communicate counsels. It is not necessary that this friend should be a relation, or any way akin to us, though it is happiest when, among those who are so, we find one fit to make a friend of. Peter and Andrew were brethren, so were James and John; yet Solomon frequently distinguishes between a friend and a brother. But it is advisable to choose a friend among our neighbours who live near us, that acquaintance may be kept up and kindnesses the more frequently interchanged. It is good also to have a special respect to those who have been friends to our family: "Thy own friend, especially if he have been thy father's friend, forsake not; fail not both to serve him and to use him, as there is occasion. He is a tried friend; he knows thy affairs; he has a particular concern for thee; therefore be advised by him." It is a duty we owe to our parents, when they are gone, to love their friends and consult with them. Solomon's son undid himself by forsaking the counsel of his father's friends. 2. A good reason given why we should thus value true friendship and be choice of it. (1.) Because of the pleasure of it. There is a great deal of sweetness in conversing and consulting with a cordial friend. It is like ointment and perfume, which are very grateful to the smell, and exhilarate the spirits. It rejoices the heart; the burden of care is made lighter by unbosoming ourselves to our friend, and it is a great satisfaction to us to have his sentiments concerning our affairs. The sweetness of friendship lies not in hearty mirth, and hearty laughter, but in hearty counsel, faithful advice, sincerely given and without flattery, by counsel of the soul (so the word is), counsel which reaches the case, and comes to the heart, counsel about soul-concerns, Psa 66:16. We should reckon that the most pleasant conversation which is about spiritual things, and promotes the prosperity of the soul. (2.) Because of the profit and advantage of it, especially in a day of calamity. We are here advised not to go into a brother's house, not to expect relief from a kinsman merely for kindred-sake, for the obligation of that commonly goes little further than calling cousin and fails when it comes to the trial of a real kindness, but rather to apply ourselves to our neighbours, who are at hand, and will be ready to help us at an exigence. It is wisdom to oblige them by being neighbourly, and we shall have the benefit of it in distress, by finding them so to us, Psa 18:24.

Boast not thyself of tomorrow,.... Or, "of tomorrow day" (t). Either of having a tomorrow, or of any future time; no man can assure himself of more than the present time; for, however desirable long life is, none can be certain of it; so says the poet (u): for though there is a common term of man's life, threescore years and ten, yet no one can be sure of arriving to it; and, though there may be a human probability of long life, in some persons of hale and strong constitutions, yet there is no certainty, since life is so frail a thing; the breath of man is in his nostrils, which is soon and easily stopped; his life is but as a vapour, which appears for a little while, and then vanishes away; all flesh is as grass, which in the morning flourishes, in the evening is cut down, and on the morrow is cast into the oven: man is like a flower, gay and beautiful for a season, but a wind, an easterly blasting wind, passes over it, and it is gone; his days are as a shadow that declineth towards the evening; they are as a hand's breadth; yea, his age is as nothing before the Lord. Death is certain to all men, as the fruit of sin, by the appointment of God; and there is a certain time fixed for it, which cannot be exceeded; but of that day and hour no man knows; and therefore cannot boast of a moment of future time, or of a tomorrow, nor of what he shall enjoy on the morrow (w); for, what he has today he cannot be certain he shall have the next; he cannot assure himself of health and honour, of pleasures, riches, and friends; he may have health today, and sickness tomorrow; be in honour today, and in disgrace on the morrow: he may bid his soul eat, drink, and be merry, seeing he has much goods laid up for many years, and vainly say, tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant, when this night his soul may be required of him; he may have his wife and children, friends and relations, about him now, and before another day comes be stripped of them all; he may be in great affluence, and gave great substance for the present, and in a short time all may be taken from him, as Job's was; riches are uncertain things, they make themselves wings and flee away. Nor should a man boast of what he will do on the morrow; either in civil things, in trade and business; to which the Apostle James applies this passage, Jam 4:13; or in acts of charity, so Aben Ezra explains it, boast not of an alms deed to be done tomorrow; whatever a man finds to be his duty to do in this respect, he should do it at once, while he has an opportunity: or in things religious; as that he will repent of his sins, and amend his life on the morrow; that he will attend the means of grace, hear the Gospel, the voice of Christ; all which should be to day, and not be put off till tomorrow. Nor should true believers procrastinate the profession of their faith; nor should any duty, or exercise of religion, be postponed to another season; but men should work while it is day, and always abound in the work of the Lord, and be found so doing; see Isa 56:12; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth; time is like a teeming woman, to which the allusion is, big with something; but what that is is not known till brought forth: as a woman, big with child, knows not what she shall bring forth till the time comes, whether a son or a daughter, a dead or a living child; so the events of time, or what is in the womb of time, are not known till brought forth; these are the secret things which belong to God, which he keeps in his own breast; the times and seasons of things are only in his power, Act 1:6. We know not what the present day, as the Targum renders it, will bring forth; and still less what tomorrow will do, what changes it will produce in our circumstances, in our bodies and in our minds; so that we cannot be certain what we shall be, what we shall have, or what we shall do, on the morrow, even provided we have one. (t) "in die crastino", Pagninus, Montanus. (u) Sophoclis Oedipus Colon. v. 560. "Nemo tam divos habuit faventes, erastinum ut possit sibi polliceri", Senco. Thyest. v. 617, 618. (w) "Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere", Horat. Carmin. l. 1. Ode 9.

Thine own friend, and thy father's friend forsake not,.... Who have been long tried and proved, and found faithful; these should be kept to and valued, and not new ones sought; which to do is oftentimes of bad consequence. Solomon valued his father's friend Hiram, and kept up friendship with him; but Rehoboam his son forsook the counsel of the old men his father's friends and counsellors, and followed the young mien his new friends, and thereby lost ten tribes at once. Jarchi interprets this of God, the friend of Israel and of their fathers, who is not to be forsaken, and is a friend that loves at all times; and to forsake him is to forsake the fountain of living waters; neither go into thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity; poverty and distress, to tell him thy case, expecting sympathy relief, and succour from him; but rather go to thy friend and father's friend, who sticks closer than a brother; see Pro 18:24; for better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off: a neighbour that is a fast and faithful friend, and who is not only near as to place but as to affections is more serviceable and, useful to a man in time of distress than a brother though near in blood, yet as far off in place, so much more in affection, and from whom a man can promise nothing, and little is to be expected. The phrase in the preceding clause signifies a cloudy day, and such a day of distress through poverty is; in which sense it is used by Latin (e) writers, when a man is alone, and former friends care not to come nigh him. (e) "Tempora si fuerunt nubila, solus eris", Ovid. Trist. 1. Eleg. 8.

(Pro. 27:1-27) Do not confide implicitly in your plans (Pro 16:9; Pro 19:21; Jam 4:13-15).

rejoice the heart--the organ of perceiving what pleases the senses. sweetness . . . counsel--or, "wise counsel is also pleasing."

The two following proverbs have in common the catchword רע, and treat of the value of friendship: - 9 Oil and frankincense rejoice the heart; And the sweet discourse of a friend from a counselling of soul. Regarding the perfuming with dry aromas, and sprinkling with liquid aromas, as a mark of honour towards guests, and as a means of promoting joyful social fellowship, vid., at Pro 7:16., Pro 21:17. The pred. ישׂמּח comprehends frankincense or oil as the two sides of one and the same thing; the lxx introduces, from Psa 104:15, also wine. It also reads ומתק רעה as one word, וּמתקרעת: καταῤῥήγνυται δὲ ὑπὸ συμπτωμάτων ψυχή, which Hitzig regards as original; for he translates, understanding מעצת after Psa 13:3, "but the soul is torn by cares." But why מתקרעה, this Hithpa. without example, for נקרעה? and now connected with מן in the sense of ὑπό! And what does one gain by this Alexandrian wisdom [of the lxx] - a contrast to 9a which is altogether incongruous? Dderlein's rendering accords far better with 9a: "but the sweetness of a friend surpasses fragrant wood." But although this rendering of the word [עצה] by "fragrant wood" is found in Gesen. Lex., from one edition to another, yet it must be rejected; for the word signifies wood as the contents of trees, the word for aromatic wood must be עצים; and if the poet had not intentionally aimed at dubiety, he ought to have written עצי בשׂם, since נפשׁ, which the exception of Isa 3:20, where it is beyond doubt, nowhere means fragrance. If we read עצת and נפשׁ together, then we may suppose that the latter designates the soul, as at Psa 13:3; and the former, counsel (from the verb יעץ). But to what does the suffix of רעהוּ refer? One may almost conjecture that the words originally were וּמתק נפשׁ מעצת רעהוּ, and the sweetness of the soul (i.e., a sweet relish for it, cf. Pro 27:7 and Pro 16:24) consists in the counsel of a friend, according to which Jerome translates: et bonis amici conciliis anima dulcoratur. By this transposition רעהו refers back to נפשׁ; for is nephesh denote a person or a living being, it can be construed ad sensum as masc., e.g., Num 31:28. But the words may remain in the order in which they are transmitted to us. It is possible that רעהוּ is (Bttcher refers to Job 12:4) of the same meaning as הרע (the friend of one = the friend), as כלּו denotes directly the whole; חציו, the half; עתּו, the right time. Recognising this, Cocceius, Umbreit, Stier, and Zckler explain: sweetness, i.e., the sweet encouragement (מתק, in the sense of "sweetness (grace) of the lips," Pro 16:21) of a friend, is better than one's own counsel, than prudence seeking to help oneself, and trusting merely to one's own resources; thus also Rashi: better than what one's own soul advises him. But (1) נפשׁ cannot mean one's own person (oneself) in contrast to another person; and (2) this does not supply a correct antithesis to 9a. Thus מן will not express the preference, but the origin. Accordingly Ewald, e.g., explains: the sweetness of a friend whom one has proceedeth from the counsel of soul, i.e., from such counsel as is drawn from a deep, full soul. But no proof can be brought from the usage of the language that עצת־נפשׁ can be so meant; these words, after the analogy of דעת נפשׁ, Pro 19:2, mean ability to give counsel as a quality of the soul (Pro 8:14; Pro 12:13), i.e., its ability to advise. Accordingly, with Bertheau, we explain ישׂמח־לב as the common predicate for 9a and 9b: ointment and perfume rejoice the heart, and (The Syr., Targ., well: even so) the sweet exhortation of a friend, from a soul capable of rendering counsel; also, this and this, more than that fragrance. This proverb is formed in the same way as Pro 26:9, Pro 26:14. In this explanation רעהו is well referred back to לב: and (more than) the sweet advice of his friend. But not so that רעהו is equivalent to רע הלּב, for one does not thus speak; but the construction is as when we say, in the German language: Nichts thut einem Herzen woler als wenn sein Freund es mitfhlend trstet [nothing does more good to a heart than when a friend sympathizingly comforts it]; or: Zage nicht, tief betrbtes Herz! Dein Freund lebt und wird dir bald sich zeigen [Be not dismayed, deeply-troubled heart! thy friend lives, and will soon show himself to thee]. In such cases the word "Herz" [heart] does not designate a distinct part of the person, but, synecdochically, it denotes the whole person.