Proverbs 12:1-11

The Discipline of Knowledge, Etc.

Pro 12:1-11

The literal translation is, "He that loveth knowledge loveth discipline;" he is aware that nothing can be done in life except under disciplinary regulation; he accepts the bit and the bridle, because they are necessary to his proper control: the wiser a man becomes the less conceited he is of his own information; the larger a man's knowledge the larger will be his wisdom, unless indeed he has quenched the aspirations of his own heart, and thus has proved that his love of knowledge is only a love of words. He that hateth reproof, or discipline, is brutish. The ox never takes kindly to the yoke in the first instance. The bullock unaccustomed to the yoke chafes and plunges, and in every way opposes efforts to curb and utilise him. It is no proof of independence or superiority that a man should reject hours, and methods, and stipulations, and contracts, under the pretence that they limit his liberty; all this is brutish-ness, and not civilisation. Wisdom is always prepared to hear any well-meant correction of its mistakes, and is always prepared to suffer for others if by so doing others can be really benefited.

"A good man obtaineth favour of the Lord: but a man of wicked devices will he condemn" ( Pro 12:2 ).

By a "good" man we are to understand a benevolent man; that is, a man who always wills happiness to others, and carries forward his benevolence into the active form of beneficence. Jesus Christ himself "went about doing good;" the Apostle Paul says that "for a good man some would even dare to die." The good man is not an intellectual fop, or a moral phenomenon, but is well disciplined, thoroughly chastened, adjusted in all his faculties, and sometimes concealing exceptional excellences under a general average of fine nature; that is to say, instead of living in his eccentricities, and making a reputation out of his occasional excellences, he brings down these mountains and irregularities, and smooths them, so as to consolidate a general average of true worth. Whoever does good is an ally of God; he is in immediate co-operation with heaven: even though he may not have a technical relation to Christian bodies, yet his goodness should be recognised as part and parcel of the very issue which such churches are established to realise. A man of wicked devices has no favour from above, and what favour he has from below is, as we have often said, but temporary: he is always suspected; detectives are continually upon his track; society is saying that such a man will presently reveal himself, and when he is revealed the people who nominally trusted him will be the first to deride his claims and bring into contempt all that he has done. The wicked man must not imagine that anybody will have favour to show him at the last; indeed, he will feel that the less favour is shown to him the better it is for himself, because he well knows that his hypocrisy has been fully understood, and that he is realising what is richly due to a life of sham and pretence and selfish vanity.

"A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones" ( Pro 12:4 ).

The moral element is not excluded from this term "virtuous," but it is latent and assumed rather than active and pronounced. It must be understood that the moral element is indeed essential; yet that does not impair the true etymology of the term. By "virtuous" we are to understand a woman of power, so to say, a virile woman; a woman of great capacity and faculty, of penetrating sagacity, and of ability to manage household and other affairs. She is a high-minded woman, giving the very best help to her husband in all the difficulties of life, crowning him with grace and with light; such a woman as he can trust in perplexity and exigency of every kind. She will not be less an intellectual woman, or a woman of strong mind, because she is morally pure, spiritually sympathetic, and religiously tender. She will not be less a philosopher because she is a true child of God. The Bible is not only a people's book, and a family book, but in very deed it may be called a woman's book: it always speaks in the interests of women; it unhesitatingly pronounces the justice of their claims, and fearlessly asserts their right to social status. The Bible is the book of the mother and of the wife of woman indeed in all her aspects and relations. If she is weak it is more than ever hers; if she is strong it commends her strength and shows her how it can be nourished and consolidated. The foolish woman brings distress upon her husband, perplexes her husband, mars his usefulness, loosens all his relations to society in general, and makes him blush where he ought to feel a sense of honour and glory in society. How just the Bible is! how true to all aspects and sides of life! It will yield nothing to wealth, nor will it abate its high moral tone in presence of poverty; it speaks the right, and declares the just, and calls for even balances and upright standards under all circumstances, and is therefore the book to be trusted and relied upon with entirest confidence in all times of personal, social, and national danger.

"A man shall be commended according to his wisdom: but he that is of a perverse heart shall be despised" ( Pro 12:8 ).

By his "wisdom" we are to understand his intelligence, his sagacity, his perception of things: in the long run every man's title to confidence is proved by events; a word may appear to be very wise and timely, but as circumstances unfold the wisdom and the timeliness of the word may be entirely disproved. We are to judge the prophecy not by the eloquence of its language, but by the completeness of its realisation. It is here the Bible proverbs take their stand, and have never been displaced by rivals. All history has shown the infinite value of Christianity, for wherever it has been received and reduced to practice it has made new creatures, new lives, new functions, new relations, and new destinies. Never once has it failed to do so. Even where it has nominally failed the failure has been exclusively nominal, and it has always been because the spirit of Christianity has not been understood, received, and exemplified. Not one word that Jesus Christ ever spoke has been disproved by after history. Christianity must claim this aspect of its own evidences, and insist upon it in the spirit of justice. When men are commended according to their wisdom none can begrudge their just fame. To commend a man according to his wealth is to give way to the meanest form of idolatry; or to commend him even on account of intellectual gifts is rather to pay an indirect tribute to one's own appreciation of genius; but to recognise a man's wisdom, in the highest moral sense of that term, as well as in its purest intellectual aspects, is to be just to the man. The time will come when monuments need not be built, and will not be built, to destroyers, warriors, men of great power of opposition; but marble will be wanted, and brass will be needed, to memorialise men who have been patriotic, independent of fear or favour, and religiously devoted to all the deepest interests of the people. The perverse or wicked heart shall be despised: it never had any great thought for the benefit of the community; it never escaped the baneful influence of its own eccentricity; it was always thinking how best to help itself, and the only heaven to which it can ever come is a heaven of intelligent and eternal contempt

"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel" ( Pro 12:10 ).

This verse might be rendered A righteous man knows the feelings of beasts. He gives them credit for feelings; he does not look upon them as merely so much animated matter, but as standing in some relation to himself, and the more complete his ownership the more considerate ought to be his treatment even of the beasts he owns. Even when the wicked man supposes himself to be merciful there is cruelty in his tenderness. Men may become so debased as to lose all sense of moral distinction, and not to know when they are tender and when they are cruel; yea, rather, they may lose all sense of tenderness, and may sink into the utterest severity and cruelty of nature. A wicked man cannot be gentle. Men should remember this, and distrust all the gentleness which is supposed to attach to men who are without conscience. The tenderness of such men is an investment, is a political trick, is a bait by which to catch the unwary, is an element of speculation. Rowland Hill used to say in his quaint way that he would not value any man's religion whose cat and dog were not the better for his piety. This is but a new translation of the text. This is the beauty of the Christian religion: it flows throughout the whole life, it ramifies in every department of the existence, and carries with it softness, purity, sympathy, kindness. The good man cannot be self-neglectful: his very goodness makes his self-discipline the more complete; and the more complete his self-discipline the larger will be his charity to those who are looking on, and who are not blessed with the same favourableness of circumstances. So then the Bible is not only a people's book, a household book, a woman's book, but it would also seem to be the book of the very beasts of the earth. "Doth God care for oxen?" "Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father." The young lions roar, and seek their meat from God. The universe must be looked upon as a great household, belonging to the Almighty, regulated by his power and his wisdom, and intended to exemplify the beneficence of his providence. In our Father's house are many mansions. All life must be most precious to him who created it. Life is a mystery which remains unsolved, bringing with it claims which none can safely or religiously set aside.

"He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding" ( Pro 12:11 ).

The wise man here lays down what ought to be the law of cause and effect, and what indeed is that law in the great majority of instances. Only he that tills his land should be satisfied with bread; he for whom the land is tilled without any exercise of forethought or prudence on his own part should have but little to eat. By tilling the land one branch of industry alone is not to be understood; the wise man is praising thriftiness, energy, care, and regard to opportunity for making solid and healthy progress. It is one man's business to till his brains; another to till the soil; another to engage in adventure; and so on, according to the endless variety of human gift. Whoever gives an equivalent for his bread will enjoy that bread all the more: he can have but poor satisfaction in his food who never worked for it, and who is indolently availing himself of the activity and enterprise of other men. The man who follows shallow persons proves his own mental quality. The wise man cannot follow vain persons, simply because he is wise, and their company would be an offence to him; he could not understand their language; he could not enter into their pursuits; he could not reciprocate their sympathies: he lives in another and upper universe. We may know what a man is by the company he keeps. The sober man cannot enjoy the society of drunkards. An honest man can find no home among thieves. You may not know the man himself, but if you know his company you know him also; find one in the company of vain, shallow, worldly persons, and, without even knowing so much as his name, you may describe him as "void of understanding."

Note

"The most salient point of contrast in the usages of ancient as compared with modern Oriental society was the large amount of liberty enjoyed by women. Instead of being immured in a harem, or appearing in public with the face covered, the wives and maidens of ancient times mingled freely and openly with the other sex in the duties and amenities of ordinary life. Rebekah travelled on a camel with her face unveiled, until she came into the presence of her affianced ( Gen 24:64-65 ). Jacob saluted Rachel with a kiss in the presence of the shepherds ( Gen 29:11 ). Each of these maidens was engaged in active employment, the former in fetching water from the well, the latter in tending her flock. Sarah wore no veil in Egypt, and yet this formed no ground for supposing her to be married ( Gen 12:14-19 ). An outrage on a maiden in the open field was visited with the severest punishment ( Deu 22:25-27 ), proving that it was not deemed improper for her to go about unprotected. Further than this, women played no inconsiderable part in public celebrations: Miriam headed a band of women who commemorated with song and dance the overthrow of the Egyptians ( Exo 15:20-21 ); Jephthah's daughter gave her father a triumphal reception ( Jdg 11:34 ); the maidens of Shiloh danced publicly in the vineyards at the yearly feast ( Jdg 21:21 ); and the women feted Saul and David, on their return from the defeat of the Philistines, with singing and dancing ( 1Sa 18:6-7 ). The odes of Deborah (Judg. v.) and of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1 , etc.) exhibit a degree of intellectual cultivation which is in itself a proof of the position of the sex in that period. Women also occasionally held public offices, particularly that of prophetess or inspired teacher, as instanced in Miriam ( Exo 15:20 ), Huldah ( 2Ki 22:14 ), Noadiah ( Neh 6:14 ), Anna ( Luk 2:36 ), and above all Deborah, who applied her prophetical gift to the administration of public affairs, and was so entitled to be styled a "judge" ( Jdg 4:4 ). The active part taken by Jezebel in the government of Israel (1 Kings 18:13 ; 1Ki 21:25 ), and the usurpation of the throne of Judah by Athaliah ( 2Ki 11:3 ), further attest the latitude allowed to women in public life. The management of household affairs devolved mainly on the women. The value of a virtuous and active housewife forms a frequent topic in the Book of Proverbs (Proverbs 11:16 ; Proverbs 12:4 ; Pro 14:1 Proverbs 31:10 , etc.)." Smith's Dictionary of the Bible,