9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.

10 ¶ When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;

11 Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:

12 To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;

13 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

14 Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;

15 Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:

16 To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;

17 Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. 18 For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.

19 None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.

20 That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. 21 'For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.

22 "But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be 'rooted out of it.

in which she resided. In fact, that the greatest number of loose women in Palestine were from foreign countries seems probable, not only from their more impure and licentious manners, but from the Hebrew appellations implying a foreign extraction. Yet Jephthah's descent from a harlot (Judg. xi. 1), Solomon's decision in the case of two harlots (1 Kings iii. 16), and the case of Tamar (Gen. xxxviii. 2), afford sufficient evidence that this debauched course of life was followed by at least some Jewish women, and was not entirely confined to foreigners.

CHAPTER III.

1 An exhortation to obedience, 5 to faith, 7 to mortification, 9 to devotion, 11 to patience. 13 The happy gain of wisdom. 19 The power, 21 and the benefits of wisdom. 27 An exhortation to charitableness, 30 peaceableness, 31 and contentedness. 33 The cursed state of the wicked.

My son, forget not my law; 'but let thine heart keep my commandments:

2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.

3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: "bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:

4 'So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.

5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

14 Job 28. 15, &c. Psal. 19. 10.

15 She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.

16 Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour.

17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her and happy is every one that retaineth her.

19 The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he "established the heavens.

20 By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew.

21 My son, let not them depart from thine eyes keep sound wisdom and dis

25 Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. 26 For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.

27 ¶ Withhold not good from "them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.

28 Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee.

29 ¶ Devise not evil against thy neighbour seeing he dwelleth securely by thee. 30 Strive not with a man without cause, if he have done thee no harm.

31

20

Envy thou not the oppressor, and

choose none of his ways.

32 For the froward is abomination to the LORD: "but his secret is with the righteous.

3322The curse of the LORD is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just.

23

34 Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly.

35 The wise shall inherit glory: but shame 24shall be the promotion of fools.

Verse 8. Health to thy navel.'-Chardin thinks that this expression is derived from the habit, in the Oriental villages, of applying, for the cure of most diseases, plasters, ointments, oils, and friction externally, to the stomach and belly; the knowledge of, and the art of preparing, internal medicines, being very little known. Roberts, however, after truly observing that the navel of an infant

18 Or, Practise no evil. 19 Psal. 37. 1. 1 Pet. 5. 5. 24 Heb. exalteth the fools.

is often clumsily managed in the East, so that it is no uncommon thing to see that part greatly enlarged and diseased, states that such a reference as the present to the navel, as being connected with earthly prosperity, is still common in India; where, for instance, it will be said of a person who has risen from poverty to affluence, 'his navel has grown much larger.'

CHAPTER IV.

1 Solomon, to persuade to obedience, 3 sheweth what instruction he had of his parents, 5 to study wisdom, 14 and to shun the path of the wicked. 20 He exhorteth to faith, 23 and sanctification.

HEAR, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.

2 For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law.

3 For I was my father's son, 'tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.

4 'He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live.

5 ¶ Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.

6 Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.

7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom and with all thy getting get understanding.

:

8 Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her.

9 She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.

10 Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many. 11 I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths.

12 When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened; and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.

13 Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go keep her; for she is thy life. 14 ¶ Enter not into the path of the wicked, go not in the way of evil men.

and

4 Or, she shall compass thee with a crown of glory. Psal. 1. 1. Chap. 1, 10, 15.

15 Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.

16 For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

17 For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.

18 But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

19 The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.

20

My son, attend to my words; incline

thine ear unto my sayings.

21 Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.

22 For they are life unto those that find them, and 'health to all their flesh.

23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

24 Put away from thee 'a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.

25 Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. 26 Ponder the path of thy feet, and 1olet all thy ways be established.

left

27 Turn not to the right hand nor to the remove thy foot from evil.

9 Heb. frowardness of mouth, and perverseness of lips.

Deut. 5. 32.

CHAPTER V.

1 Solomon exhorteth to the study of wisdom. 3 He sheweth the mischief of whoredom and riot. 15 He exhorteth to contentedness, liberality, and chastity. 22 The wicked are overtaken with their own sins.

My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:

2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil :

4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two edged sword.

5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. 8 Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house :

9 Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

10 Lest strangers be filled with 'thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; 11 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

1 Chap. 2. 16, and 6. 24.

6 Heb. err thou always in her love.

12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.

:

18 Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts 'satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosoin of a stranger?

21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his "sins.

23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

8 Heb. sin.

Verse 4. Wormwood.'-The word my laanah, certainly denotes an extremely disagreeable and bitter plant: and that it was wormwood is a well-supported and probable interpretation. We therefore give a cut of the artemisia

16

WORMWOOD (Artemisia absinthium).

absinthium. The Artemisia absinthium, and other species of artemisia, are common in Palestine, but many of them resemble each other so closely in their properties, that it is difficult to determine from the single characteristic of bitterness which of them may be meant. The manner in which it is mentioned may suggest that some more hurtful species than the common wormwood is intended; unless, as suggested by Gesenius, in the strong passages which seem to call for such an explanation, the name of the plant is employed figuratively to express poison.

15. ‘Drink waters out of thine own cistern,' etc.-This proverb is very much elucidated by the fact that even at the present day every respectable house in Jerusalem has a

reservoir or cistern sunk in the courtyard; and this, during the later spring rains, is filled up with water, which serves over the long and dry summer, and then is again filled by the early rains of autumn. This is, in fact, the main dependence of the inhabitants of a region where springs of water are few, and where nearly all the rivers dry up very early in the summer. Therefore a man who has not his own cistern must depend on the cisterns of others, and must be constantly asking what is really a great favour from them, and an inconvenience to them, while the supply from this source is in danger of being cut off as soon as the owners of the cistern suspect that their water is likely to run short, or that the season of drought threatens to be of long duration.

16. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.'-This is to an Oriental an image of the highest degree of blessedness. It is however founded on facts. It could, indeed, not often occur in Palestine that the waste water of a fountain should run in streams through the streets; but it does occur in some places where water is unusually abundant, as in Damascus; and to those who have been inured to the heat, the thirst, and the scarcity of water in eastern climates, gives an idea of redundant plenty, of luxurious extravagance, and even of sinful waste, which the inhabitants of a well-watered region cannot easily comprehend.

19. The loving hind and pleasant roe.'-A reference to these animals, or at least to the latter, which we have supposed to be the gazelle, is still employed in the East to express whatever is graceful and beautiful in woman. We see in the Scriptures that, when a comparison drawn from it is applied to man, it is with reference to its agility and speed; but when to woman, the comparison regards its graceful form, timidity, and gentleness. This is precisely the same among the modern Orientals, with whom, in fact, the gazelle and the monkey represent the extremes of beauty and ugliness. It is rare to find a piece of amatory poetry in which the lady is not compared to the gazelle, or her eyes to the soft and lustrous ones of that most elegant creature. This has been well observed by D'Arvieux: The Arabs express a woman's beauty by saying, she has the eyes of the gazelle. The burden of their love-songs is the gazelle's eyes; and it is to this creature they invariably compare their mistresses when they wish to give, in one word, the idea of a perfect beauty. These gazelles are indeed very pretty creatures; and there is especially a certain innocent fear about them, that may well be compared to the modesty and bashfulness of a young girl.'

My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,

2 Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.

3 Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, 'and make sure thy friend. 4 Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.

5 Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand

1 Or, so shalt thou prevail with thy friend.

of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

6 ¶ Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

7 Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, 8 Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

9 How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?

10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:

11 So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man. 12 TA naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth.

13 He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers;

14 Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he 'soweth discord.

15 Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.

16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,

19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

20 My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 21 Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck.

22 When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.

23 'For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:

24 "To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery "of the tongue of a strange

heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.

26 For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and "the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.

27 Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?

28 Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?

29 So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.

30 Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry;

31 But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.

15.

32 But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.

33 A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.

34 For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of ven

7 Rom. 3. 15. 8 Chap. 1. 8. 9 Psal. 19. 8, and 119. 103. 12 Or, of the strange tongue. 13 Matt. 5. 28. 16 Heb. He will not accept the face of any ransom.

Verse 1. Surety for thy friend.'-This admonition against becoming surety for a friend is, as Holden remarks, so harsh, so uncharitable, and so adverse to the spirit of the law (Lev. xix. 18), and so opposite to the advice of Solomon himself in other passages (Prov. xiv. 21; xvii. 17; xviii. 24; xxvii. 10), that it is impossible to conceive this to be the meaning. Some examples of suretiship are recorded in Scripture. Judah became surety to his father for his brother Benjamin (Gen. xliii. 9), and St. Paul for Philemon (Philem. 18, 19).

לְרֵעֶךָ The original word

translated for thy friend' had therefore better here be understood in the frequent sense of for thy neighbour,' or 'thy acquaintance;' and be regarded as denoting a neighbour with whom one is little acquainted. This appears not only from the second hemistich, which is explanatory of the first, but from the parallel passages in the book (Prov. xi. 15; xx. 16; xxvii. 13). And even in this case it can only be regarded as a maxim of economical prudence, advising great caution and circumspection in becoming surety; for the offices of love and kindness were not to be refused even to the strangers dwelling in Israel. See Exod. xii. 49; Lev. xix. 34; xxv. 35; Deut. x. 19.

'Stricken thy hand.'-This refers to the almost universal custom of striking hands to confirm a bargain or compact.

6. Go to the ant...consider her ways and be wise.'— The study of the ways of the ant, which the wisest of men here recommends as calculated to furnish lessons of wisdom, has indeed been found most useful and instructive, revealing to us the wisdom of God as manifested in the humblest of his creatures, and furnishing important prac

tical lessons, which the humbleness of the teacher should not lead us to despise, but to value the more highly.

The researches of Réaumur, Huber, Kirby, Spence, and other naturalists, into the habits and pursuits of these wonderful little beings, enable us much better than the early commentators to appreciate the force and propriety of this reference, whether understood with regard to the industry, the skill, or the economy which their communities exhibit.

Our woodcuts shew what only is capable of pictorial illustration-the skill, industry, and labour with which the domiciles of the different kinds of ants are constructed, and which, considered relatively to the size and resources of the respective architects, far exceed many of those greatest results of human ingenuity and labour by which the world has been astonished. Whether as masons, carpenters, miners, or carvers of wood, they offer examples which the most ingenious need not refuse to admire, and by which the wisest may be instructed. In the various species of ants the constructions are various, and none unworthy of attention. The mason-ant offers to our contemplation its earthen hillock, the interior of which exhibits a series of labyrinths, lodges, vaults, and galleries; its construction skilful, and its situation chosen with judgment. Such nests are sometimes constructed in twenty stories above and as many below the ground, by which arrangement the ants are enabled to regulate with great facility the heat, withdrawing to the underground apartments when those above become too warm, and proceeding upward when their lower rooms are too cold. With equal skill, and perhaps greater labour, do the carpenter-ants