STUDY IN PROVERBS PROVERBS 26:7-9 26:7 - “The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools.” They are not fit to deliver wise sayings, nor should they undertake to handle any matter of weight, though they should be instructed concerning it, and be able to say something to it. Wise sayings, as a foolish man delivers them and applies them (in such a manner that one may know he does not rightly understand them), lose their excellency and usefulness: A parable in the mouth of fools ceases to be a parable, and becomes a jest. If a man who lives a wicked life, yet speaks religiously and takes Gods covenant into his mouth. He does but shame himself and his profession: As the legs of the lame are not equal, by reason of which their going is unseemly, so unseemly is it for a fool to pretend to speak and give advice, and for a man to talk devoutly whose conversation is a constant contradiction to his talk and gives him the lie. His good words raise him up, but then his bad life takes him down, and so his legs are not equal. “A wise saying, doth as ill become a fool as dancing doth a cripple; for, as his lameness never so much appears as when he would seem nimble, so the others folly is never so ridiculous as when he would seem wise.” As therefore it is best for a lame man to keep his seat, so it is best for a silly man, or a bad man, to hold his tongue. 26:8 - “As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, so is he that giveth honour to a fool.” They are not fit to have any honor put upon them. He had said - 26:1, Honor is not seemly for a fool; here he shows that it is lost and thrown away upon him, as if a man should throw a precious stone, or a stone fit to be used in weighing, into a heap of common stones, where it would be buried and of no use; it is as absurd as if a man should dress up a stone in purple (so others); nay, it is dangerous, it is like a stone bound in a sling, with which a man will be likely to do hurt. To give honor to a fool is to put a sword in a madmans hand, with which we know not what mischief he may do, even to those that put it into his hand. 26:9 - “As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools.” He does but do mischief with it to himself and others, as a drunkard does with a thorn, or any other sharp thing which he takes in his hand, with which he tears himself and those about him, because he knows not how to manage it. Those that talk well and do not live well, their good words will aggravate their own condemnation and others will be hardened by their inconsistency with themselves. Some give this sense of it: The sharpest saying, by which a sinner, one would think, should be pricked to the heart, makes no more impression upon a fool, no, though it come out of his own mouth, than the scratch of a thorn does upon the hand of a man when he is drunk, who then feels it not nor complains of it - 23:35.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:15:16 +0000
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