9 How long wilt thou sleep, O -sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? 10 Yet1 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. PARALLEL PASSAGES. 1Ch. 24: 33, 34. 12 A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth. 13 He winketh2 with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers; 14 Frowardness is in his heart, he3 deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord.4 2Job 15:12. Is. 57:20. Rom. 16:17. capturing root-sucking aphides and imprisoning them in their cells, with a view of feeding on their honey dew. Appleton's Cyclopædia. 9. This is applicable (1) to those that are slothful in the way of work and duty, in the duties of their particular calling as men, or their general calling as Christians; (2) to those that are secure in the way of sin and danger. Henry. 10. This verse contains the reply which the sluggard makes to the inquiry put to him in the preceding verse. He insists on more self-indulgence, let the consequences be what they may. How often, alas! do we witness similar inactivity, stupidity, and recklessness among men, in regard to their spiritual interests and duties. Muenscher. - 11. As one that travelleth, that is, by surprise. As an armed man, that is, with irresistible violence. Patrick. But if thou be diligent, thy harvest shall arrive as a fountain, and poverty shall flee away as a bad courser. Septuagint. - A motto on the walls of the Delphian temple, ascribed to Periander, one of the seven wise men of Greece, was, "Nothing is impossible to industry." Foster.-A sufficient supply of sleep is necessary to the fullest industry. Whoever by work, pleasure, sorrow, or by any other cause, regularly diminishes his sleep, is destroying his life. A man may hold out for a time; but nature keeps close accounts, and no man can dodge her settlements. Beecher. 12. A naughty person. Literally, a man of Belial, a wicked, base, abandoned wretch. Muenscher.—This description naturally follows that of the sluggard, – "Satan finds some mischief still, For idle hands to do." Walketh. Here used in a moral sense for conducts. Muenscher.—Froward mouth. In the Hebrew, "with perverseness of mouth"; in the sense of detracting from the actions of other men, and so perverting all to the worst sense possible. Hammond. 13. Speaketh with his feet. The Orientals are wonderfully proficient in making communica tions to each other by means of signs and gestures with the eyes, the hands, and the feet. The number of signs of this sort which have a wide and most extensively understood significance, and which are, in fact, in current use among the people, is very large. Having seldom any natural significance, few of them are at once intelligible to Europeans; but in the East a large proportion of the same signs are common to many different nations, forming, for ordinary purposes, a tolerably adequate means of communication between those who do not comprehend each other's oral speech. In this way many a question is put and answered, and many an intimation conveyed, even by children, who learn this language of signs even sooner than their mother tongue. Thus the universal sign of invitation, or of beckoning one to come, is given by the rapid movement of the entire fingers of the right hand; in short, the same as our own sign of beckoning, except that the palm, and consequently the fingers, is held downward instead of upward. Then the still more universal sign for money is to slip the thumb repeatedly and quickly over the forefinger as one does in telling out money,-a very good sign, but not obviously intelligible until it has been explained. In regard to the feet being mentioned here as well as the hands, the Rev. W. Jowett, in his "Christian Researches," suggests that the allusion is to be understood in connection with the oriental habit of sitting on the ground, which brings the feet into view nearly in the same line with the hands, the whole body crouching down together, and the hands, in fact, often resting upon the feet. But apart from such common movements or signs, it is a fact that artificial systems of signs, by which any kind of communication may be made without the interchange of a word, and by means of which even the deaf and dumb may receive instruction, and communicate with others, existed in the East long before such systems were devised in Europe for the education of persons so afflicted; and it seems to us far from impossible that something of the kind may be alluded to in the proverb, as employed by nefarious persons in making their communications to one another. Kitto.-By sly winking, by significant gestures, they would covertly convey their insidious meaning, so 15 Therefore1 shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without3 remedy. 16¶ These six things doth the LORD hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look, a lying5 tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. 18 A heart" that deviseth wicked imaginations, feets that be swift in running to mischief 19 A false9 witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren 20 My son, keep10 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 When11 thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shal keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. PARALLEL PASSAGES.- 1Ch. 1:27. Jer. 19:11. 82 Chron. 36:16. 4Ps. 18:27. Ps. 120:3, 4. Rev. 22:15. 62 Kings 24:3, 4. Is. 1:15. Mi. 2:1. Is. 59:7. Ch. 19:9. 10Eph. 6:1. 11Deut. 11: 18–21. as to incur no danger of detection or to be held to no just responsibility, which no honest man shuns. The dastardly defamer securely aims his poisoned shaft at the unconscious victim,— "Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, Just hints a fault, and hesitates dislike." The one here described is the most infamous of them all, and hence is stigmatized with double emphasis. T. J. Conant.-When guests wish to speak with each other, so as not to be observed by the host, they convey their meaning by the feet and toes. When merchants wish to bargain in the presence of others without making known their terms, they sit on the ground, have a piece of cloth thrown over their lap, and then put each a hand under, and thus speak with their fingers. Roberts. -Such a person, when he has nothing of weight to say against a man, will by significant gestures of all sorts intimate matters to his disadvantage, and so persuade others without laying any particular thing to his charge. Hammond. - Intimates by signs with the eyes, hands, or feet, the base designs which he is afraid or ashamed to express in plain words. Noyes. 15. Calamity suddenly. Such a person shall be brought to utter ruin, when he fancies he has carried his matters so cunningly that no one discerns his villany. Patrick.-Broken without remedy, alluding, it appears, to an earthen vessel which, when broken into pieces, cannot be made whole again. Wells. 16. The sacred writer here subjoins several acts of wickedness which are specially displeasing to God; not that every act of wickedness is not displeasing, but that these acts are distinguished among the number as being highly pernicious to human society. Muenscher. 17. Pride. Seven things God hates; and pride is the first, because it is at the bottom of much sin, and gives rise to it. Henry. 4 18. Heart. The heart underlies the seven vices which are an abomination to God, and in the midst (the middle one of the seven) because it is the fountain from which evil flows in all directions. Starke. 19. Soweth discord. Those that, by tale-bearing and slandering, by carrying ill-natured stories, aggravating everything that is said and done, and suggesting jealousies and evil surmises, blow the coals of contention, are but preparing for themselves a fire of the same nature. Henry. 20. Instruction is valuable, let it come from whom it may; but from parents it is authoritative, the ordinance of heaven. As it is the imperative duty of parents to impart the best instruction to their children, so it is the imperative duty of children constantly to regard that instruction. Muenscher. 21. About thy neck. The instructions and admonitions of faithful parents, carried out in life, are compared to wreaths, tiaras, and necklaces, which are very generally worn in the East by both sexes, but particularly by females, as ornamental decorations of the head and neck. These ornaments, by imparting elegance and gracefulness to the human form, gave additional charm and attractiveness to those that wore them. In like manner those who exhibit in their disposition and deportment the virtues which characterize the pious and the good are thereby rendered morally beautiful and lovely, both in the sight of God and man. To adorn the person with extrinsic ornaments appears to be an instinct of humanity. The natural fondness for personal ornaments and decorations, however, is often indulged in to excess. Against this excessive and criminal indulgence the instructions of the New Testament are frequently directed. Ornaments are, however, alluded to in this passage neither for the purpose of approving nor of condemning them, but merely to indicate that moral qualities are really and emphatically the true adornments of a rational and immortal being. Muenscher. 22. It shall lead. That is, the commandments and precepts of verse 20. Noyes.-It shall talk with thee. Shall suggest good thoughts to thee. Wells. — -It shall be our guard, and we must put ourselves under its protection. It will be our companion, and we must converse with it. When thou awakest in the morning, and art contriving the work of the day, it shall talk with thee about it, and help thee to contrive for the best. Henry. 29. Who, etc. "Sorrow" is, strictly, anxious care, complaint; "wounds without cause "9 are wounds received in causeless or wholly unprofitable disputes, wounds and stripes such as come of the brawls of a drunken man; "redness of eyes" is the revolting effect of excessive use of wine, as it shows itself in the face. Zockler.- Babbling. Obscene and idle words. Hall. - Not one; I think not one but can remember some honored or dear friend who has been stricken down by this evil, that to-day in this land, more than all else, makes misery, anguish, unhappy homes, pauperism, crime, murder, selfdestruction. It is indeed a terrible tyrant, the insatiate monster of intemperance. In the thousands of years that have elapsed since this sacred word came from inspiration, every year has been realized the truthfulness of that series of striking and startling questions, realized to-day in Washington as elsewhere, "Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath strife? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine. They that go to seek mixed wine." We speak of the horrors of war, and there are horrors in war. Carnage, and bloodshed, and mutilation, and empty sleeves, and broken frames, and widows' weeds, and children's woes, and enormous debt, and grinding taxation, all come from war, though even war may be a necessity to save a nation's life. But they fail in all their horrors compared with those that flow from intemper ance. We shudder as we read of the ravages of the pestilence that walked abroad at noonday; but the pestilence, like war, kills only the body and leaves the soul unharmed. Have you heard of those terrible statistics the census reveals, that there are four hundred thousand more people to-day engaged in the manufacturing and sale of liquors than in preaching God's word and in teaching the rising generation in our schools and colleges? Have you thought of that saddening and gloomy fact that every year sixty thousand of our people march voluntarily, self-destroyed, down through a drunkard's life to the drunkard's death and grave? Where can we turn to see anything that relieves this sad and dark picture? Go to the poorhouses of New York. Seventy-two thousand wrecks of humanity are supported by the taxation of the people in the poorhouses of New York; and of those seventy-two thousand it has been ascertained that more than one half came to their present ruin directly through liquor. But turn from New York to the broad and continental domain of our republic. If there are seventy-two thousand in New York, there are seven hundred thousand in the poorhouses of the States and Territories of the nation. Colfax. 30. Tarry long at the wine. In the same chapter (23 30), there is a strong rebuke of those who "tarry long at the wine," another indication that, as Solomon himself says, "there is nothing new under the sun," for this is exactly what the Orientals are prone to do in their compotations. They have no notion of any enjoyment of wine apart from the exhilarating inebriety it produces; and hence, when they do get drink, they usually indulge in it to the last degree of excess. Wine, as we all know, is forbidden to the Moslems, who now rule in Western Asia; but it is really much used, more or less secretly, by persons in easy circumstances. When a man wishes to entertain his friends with wine, they generally meet early, and continue at their work the whole day, or a day and night together, with intervals of eating, and with the accompaniment of songs, dances, and recitations. D'Arvieux relates that during his sojourn among the Arabs, near Mount Carmel, a wreck took place on the coast, from which one of the emirs secured two large casks of wine, and thereupon sent to the neighboring emirs, inviting them to come and help him to drink it. They gladly came, and continued drinking for two days and two nights, until not a drop of the wine was left. During this time they never quitted the table wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. 31 Look' not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. PARALLEL PASSAGE.-1Col. 2:21. except to rest in some corner of the tent, after which they resumed their places. When all was gone, they deliberated how to obtain a fresh supply of the pleasant bane; but, seeing no prospects of success, they dispersed reluctantly to their several camps. This may remind us of the verse-"When I shall awake, I will seek it yet again." The curious old French traveller, Tavernier, relates that, when he was in Persia, the king sent for him early one morning to the palace, where, with other favored persons, he was obliged to sit all the day, and till late at night, drinking wine with the shah; but at last, he says, "the king, growing sleepy, gave us leave to depart, which we did very willingly, having had hard labor for seventeen hours together!" Kitto.-Mixed wine. This expression undoubtedly here signifies spiced, drugged, medicated wine, the intoxicating power of which is increased by the infusion of drugs and spices. It was a common practice of habitual drunkards to use wine of this description, but not of the people generally. Muenscher. - This is wholly different from the mingled wine of wisdom. (Prov. 9:2.) The mixture there is with wine or milk, or with both of them. Stuart. 31. When it is red. Red wines were most esteemed in the East. So much was the red color admired, that when it was too white they gave it a deeper tinge by mixing it with saffron or Brazil wood. By extracting the coloring matter of such ingredients the wine may be said to make itself redder, a circumstance which, in Mr. Harmer's opinion, Solomon meant to express in the proverb (23:31). Paxton. - Moveth itself aright. The property here alluded to is called by wine-drinkers mellowness. Muenscher. - Look pot. Do men rush deliberately and with full purpose of heart into such an abyss? Is there any one so lost to self-respect, to all prudence and duty, so devoid of every finer instinct and sentiment of our nature, that he can willingly sink down to the ignominy and the woe that are the drunkard's portion? I tell you nay. Every human being recoils with involuntary horror and disgust from the contemplation of such a fate. He shrinks from it, as he would from the foul embraces of a serpent, and feels that he would sooner sacrifice everything than take his place beside the bloated and degraded beings who seem dead to all that is noble in our nature or hopeful in our lot. These are victims that have gone blindfold to their fate. Gentle is the declivity, smooth and noiseless the descent, which conducts them, step by step, along the treacherous way, till suddenly their feet slide, and they find themselves plunging over the awful precipice. It will be admitted, I presume, by all who hear me, that if there were no temperate drinking there would be none that is intemperate. Men do not begin by what is usually called immoderate indulgence, but by that which they regard as moderate. Gradually and insensibly their draughts are increased until the functions of life are permanently disturbed, the system becomes inflamed, and there is that morbid appetite which will hardly brook restraint, and the indulgence of which is sottish intemperance. Let it be remembered, then, that what is usually styled temperate drinking stands as the condition precedent to that which is intemperate. Discontinue one, and the other becomes impossible. And what is the cause of moderate drinking? Is it the force of natural appetite? Rarely. Nine tenths, if not ninety-nine hundredths of those who use alcoholic stimulants, do it in the first instance, and often for a long time, not from appetite, but from deference to custom or fashion. They look on the wine. Bp. Potter. - In this country, and in this age of light and knowledge, we have fifty thousand churches, and fifty thousand ministers of the living God: we have an army of five hundred thousand drunkards; fifty thousand of this army annually sink into a drunkard's grave. An army of half a million of drunkards in Christian America! How fearful is the thought! how appalling the spectacle! Men do not often become drunkards by one stride. Nor do they intend to become drunkards. It begins with a glass and gradually multiplies. Hon. Henry Wilson. At the last. Young men often ask what harm there can be in a social, moderate glass of wine. It is certainly, they claim, a very agreeable way of passing a leisure hour. Undoubtedly they find the exhilaration of wine and jovial intercourse very agreeable; and it is upon this admitted fact that the counsel of my text is based, "Look not thou at the wine when it giveth its color in the cup: at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder." Not at the first. Did it bite at the first, who would tamper with it? Did the sting come at the beginning of the indulgence, who would be led astray? But the pleasure comes at the first and the sting at the last, and herein lies the danger of looking on the wine. At the first it excites mirth and song, at the last it produces sorrow and curses. At the first it is an affair of good feeling and fellowship; at the last it is an affair of feuds, fighting, and murder. At the first it may kindle up the countenance to a more animated expression; at the last it gives redness of eyes, and bloat and deformity to the visage. At the first it may quicken the intellect to unwonted activity, and impart a captivating brilliancy to the conversation; at the last it emasculates the mind of every element of strength, and degrades the conversation to the merest stammering of idiotic gibberish. At the first it may stimu 32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. 33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. 34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. PARALLEL PASSAGES.-Numb. 21: 6. 1 Cor. 6:10. late the body to an unnatural vigor; at the last it breaks down the strongest frame, and sends weakness into the limbs and trembling into the flesh. At the first there may be health enough to resist the pernicious tendency of intoxication, so that with all the pleasures there are few of the pains of indulgence; at the last they become victims of manifold, inveterate, loathsome, and distressing diseases. In the begin ning they count themselves of all men most happy; in the end they confess themselves of all men most miserable. In the beginning we have a company of fine young gentlemen; in the end we have a group of dilapidated and vulgar old sots. At the commencement of their career they have free access to respectable society; at its close few are willing to be seen in their company. At the first they have no small pride of character; at the last all regard for reputation is overwhelmed in the lust for drink. At the first it is a cup of exhilaration in the hands of thoughtless youth; at the last it is a "cup of fearful trembling in the hand of an offended God." At the first it is the wine of pleasant fellowship; at the last it is the "wine of the wrath of Almighty God, poured out without mixture." At the first it is the agreeable excitement of an evening; at the last it is the long-drawn agony of an endless perdition. At the first it is the grateful stimulus of an hour; at the last it is "the worm that never dies, and the fire that never shall be quenched." Trask. 32. Biteth like a serpent. They, the serpents, inflicted on them their terrible bites. Being surcharged with poison, the effects produced made the wretched sufferer feel as though the current of his blood was changed into tides of fire in his veins, causing the anguish of intolerable fever and thirst. Life was corrupted at the fountain; the blood ran polluted from the heart, and spread its defilement over the whole frame till the victim sank beneath his malady. Bush. - Little reader, many thousands have found, to their sorrow, that what the Bible says of wine is true that it does indeed bite like a serpent. But remember, if you obey the command, and do not taste it, nor even look at it, it cannot bite or harm you. Many parents are training up their children to become drunkards, by giving them wine to drink; for, after they have learned to love wine, many of them are soon after found at the fashionable bar-rooms, drinking whiskey-punch or brandy. Dr. Jewett. - The waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have but set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth, to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is, when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will, to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the way emanating from himself, to perceive all goodness emptied out of him and yet not to be able to forget a time when it was otherwise, to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own self-ruin; could he see my fevered eye, feverish with last night's drinking, and feverishly looking forward for this night's repetition of the folly, could he feel the body of the death out of which I cry hourly with feebler outcry to be delivered, it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of its mantling temptation, to make him clasp his teeth. Charles Lamb. 33. Behold strange women. Strange visions. Heb., zaroth; wrongly rendered, by our translators, "strange women." They are here strange sights which the drunkard sees, as appears, too, from the strange language afterwards ascribed to him. We may compare it with an awful passage in the Odyssey, xx, 354, where the drunken suitors see the most terrific sights, "the walls sprinkled with blood, and the house full of spectres." Tayler Lewis.-Utter perverse. What ridiculous, incoherent nonsense will men talk when drunk, who at another time will speak admirably and to the point! Henry. Wild ravings thy heart shall utter. The primary sense of the verb being to turn a thing upside down, as said so often of Sodom and Gomorrah. Hence the noun denoting topsy-turviness, utter contradictoriness, absurdity, and wild confusion, the talk of a man in the delirium tremens. Tayler Lewis. 34. In the midst of the sea... top of mast. The drunkard is represented as surrounded by danger, and yet insensible to his perilous situation, as a reckless mariner reposing in a frail bark in the midst of a rolling tempestuous sea; or as a sea boy, sleeping soundly in unconscious security at the mast. head, in imminent peril of his life. Muenscher. As the comparison holds good in several particulars, there is some doubt as to which was intended by the poet, whether he refers to the stupidity and sense. lessness of danger which are the consequence of intoxication, or to the giddy feelings of the persons |