Proverbs 27:1 - Exposition

Boast not thyself of tomorrow. He boasts himself ( Proverbs 25:14 ) of tomorrow who counts upon it presumptuously, settles that he will do this or that, as if his life was in his own power, and he could make sure of time. This is blindness and arrogance. For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Our Lord gave a lesson on this matter in the parable of the rich fool ( Luke 12:1-59 .); and an analogous warning, based on our verse, is given by St. James ( James 4:13 , etc.). On this topic moralists and poets are always dilating. Very familiar are the words of Horace ('Carm.,' 4.7, 17)—

" Quis scit, an adjiciant hodiernae crastina summae

Tempora di superi? "

Euripides, 'Alc.,' 783—

οὐκ ἔστι θνητῶν ὅστις ἐξεπίσταται

τὴν αὔριον μέλλουσαν εἰ βιώσεται

τὸ τῆστύχης γὰρ ἀφανὲς οἷ προβήσεται

κἄστ οὐ διδακτόν οὐδ ἁλίσκεται τέχνη

"Every day in thy life," says the Arab, "is a leaf in thy history." Seneca wrote—

" Nemo tam divos habuit faventes

Crastinum ut possit sibi pelliceri,

Res deus nostras celeri citatas

Turbine versat ."

There is the adage, " Nescis quid serus vesper vehat ." The LXX . has, as at James 3:1-18 :28, "Thou knowest not what the next day ( ἡ ἐπιοῦσα ) shall bring forth." (For the expression, ἡ ἐπιοῦσα , comp. Acts 7:26 ; Acts 16:11 .)