of the wise man's rule—a man of rude, uncultured nature, and perhaps of alien race. To such a one, the being fed by the very man whom he 'hated' would give first of all a shock of surprise, and then a pang of intolerable remorse for his own unworthiness.[1] I wish one could be sure that this pang was referred to as purifying as well as painful to the sufferer. A parallel passage would be a great boon. Of course we can apply the passage in the same sense as St. Paul when he followed his quotation with the words, 'Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.'
But we should wrong our 'wise men' by treating them as pure utilitarians; they are often sympathetic observers of character and circumstance. For instance,—
Vinegar falling upon a wound,[2]
and he who sings songs to a heavy heart (xxv. 20).
Silver dross spread over an earthen vessel—
fervent lips[3] and a bad heart (xxvi. 23).
Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth:
a stranger, and not thine own lips (xxvii. 2).
Faithful are the wounds of one who loves,
but the kisses of a hater are profuse[4] (xxvii. 6).
Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not;
and go not to thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity:
better is a near neighbour than a far off brother[5] (xxvii. 10).
He who blesses his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning,
it is reckoned to him for a curse[6] (xxvii. 14).
Iron is sharpened by iron,
and a man sharpens the face (or edge) of his friend (xxvii. 17).
. The opening words of the verse in rec. text arise
from the repetition in a corrupt form of the four last words of the preceding verse (Lagarde and Bickell).]
- ↑ See however Mr. Yonge in The Expositor, Aug. 1885, pp. 158-9.
- ↑ The received text has 'vinegar upon nitre;' but this would be rather an
emblem for anger. The correction is Bickell's, and is partly founded on Sept.
[Greek: hôsper oxos helkei asymphoron - ↑ The Septuagint has 'smooth lips.'
- ↑ To have added 'but perfidious,' would have made the line too long.
- ↑ This seems a combination of two distinct proverbs. The one says that a
friend can give more sympathy than a relative; the other, that a neighbour, being
on the spot, can give more help than a relative at a distance. - ↑ A humorous picture! Such ostentatious and inopportune salutations are
execrable flattery.
