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NOTES for Pro 6:20-35; Pro 7:1

Printable version
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 woman.
25 Lust not after her beauty in thine 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.
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 vengeance.
35 He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.
1 My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
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"My son, keep your father's commandment, and do not reject your mother's teaching..." When we were little, we sometimes thought: when I grow up, I will not have to obey Mom and Dad; I will be an adult, I will do what I want, and I will eat a whole mountain of candy at once. Then we grow up, and we no longer want a mountain of candy; we do not even want one piece, but we want something else. And again it turns out that we cannot. So where is that vaunted freedom?..

Here is what the well-known Protestant thinker of the middle of the last century, Karl Barth, writes: "freedom can be defined as a person's independence from any inner compulsion." In reality it turns out to be the opposite: it is not what cuts us off from the object of our desire that deprives us of freedom, but this very desire, arising within us, that becomes the cause of our suffering and deprives us of the blessed freedom to be ourselves. This puts everything in its place. But still, what are we to do with these endless external limits, all the way to the limit of the very span of our life? Okudzhava once put it wonderfully: "The whole world is made of limits, / So happiness will not drive us mad". Ironic, funny? In fact, very deep.

Here is what Barth writes: "The fact that limits are given to us does not testify to the imperfection of the world; limits are not the chains of an evil fate. We are given the freedom to know what we are permitted to know, to accomplish what we are permitted to accomplish. In this freedom is God's will, God's blessing to His creation." But why was it God's will that we should suffer from the unrealized state of our desires? So that happiness would not drive us mad. The ancient Romans also said: "whom Jupiter wishes to destroy, he deprives of reason." But God certainly does not want to destroy us.


"From my youth many passions war against me,
but You Yourself defend me and save me, my Savior"
(Antiphon, Tone 4)

Other notes

 
For Pro 6:3-20
3 Do this now, my son, 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 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 A 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:
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Isaiah's prophecies constantly speak of what will become of the world without God. What will become of a world in which people do not accept and do not acknowledge God...  Read more

Isaiah's prophecies constantly speak of what will become of the world without God. What will become of a world in which people do not accept and do not acknowledge God. "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" the Lord asks. This question expresses what the Lord wants to see in us. That He needs us. That He sends the prophet: a man whom He has cleansed from sin in order to call people to Himself.

And in Proverbs we read about the need for labor. Spiritual labor for deliverance from sins and vices. Thus in today's reading two of the greatest paths of a person's relationship with God come together: the constant call to repentance and to spiritual labor. To repentance before God and one's neighbor. Before the one with whom you quarrel and whom you envy, over whom you exalt yourself and whom you push around.

And the whole text of today's reading very much recalls the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, which we read during Lent and which strengthens our understanding of the main vices of the human heart, from which Judgment on the world flows.

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For Pro 6:1-35
1 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, 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 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 A 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 woman.
25 Lust not after her beauty in thine 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.
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 vengeance.
35 He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.
Hide
The advice not to stand surety for one’s neighbor seems strange. Should a person in need of a guarantor really be left to fend for himself...  Read more

The advice not to stand surety for one’s neighbor seems strange. Should a person in need of a guarantor really be left to fend for himself while we care only about our own interests? For, in the words of Jesus son of Sirach, “A good man will be surety for his neighbor, but he who has lost all sense of shame will abandon him” (Sir. 29:17).

It seems that this is not about treating someone in need with indifference, but about the need not to be so naive as to allow swindlers to abuse your trust. Such trust makes a person dependent on the one in whom he has placed it. But one may depend only on God.

A person who stands surety often risks being let down by the one for whom he has vouched, and thus makes a sacrifice. But a sacrifice should not be frivolous or reckless. The person unwilling to break free from enslaving bonds is called lazy and is advised to follow the example of the ant, which works without compulsion. Entomologists may dispute the accuracy of this comparison, but it is more important to understand the meaning of the metaphor: a call to free, voluntary labor. Thus, even in ancient times wise people understood that freedom to act is higher than freedom from action.

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For Pro 7:1-27
1 My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
2 Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.
3 Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart.
4 Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman:
5 That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.
6 For at the window of my house I looked through my casement,
7 And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding,
8 Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house,
9 In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night:
10 And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart.
11 (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house:
12 Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.)
13 So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,
14 I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows.
15 Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
16 I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.
17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
18 Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves.
19 For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey:
20 He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed.
21 With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.
22 He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks;
23 Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.
24 Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth.
25 Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.
26 For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.
27 Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
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In our age of permissive morals, the cautionary tale of the treachery of another man's wife may seem...  Read more

In our age of permissive morals, the cautionary tale of the treachery of another man's wife may seem naive. Yet it is worth considering that adultery is not portrayed by chance as an image of evil that goes beyond ordinary human relations, and that apostasy is associated precisely with this sin. Nor is the matter simply that we have too readily agreed to call something else “love.” It is no coincidence that the woman hunting for young men has covered her bed with Egyptian linen, recalling the land where the people were enslaved. Whoever falls under her power becomes a slave, senselessly squandering his spiritual strength in bondage to his own illusions. We should use the word “love,” one of the descriptions of God, with greater care...

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