The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Proverbs — John Shaqi
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of ProverbsHorton, Robert F. (Robert Forman)
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Proverbs
Horton, Robert F. (Robert Forman)
Bible. Proverbs -- Commentaries
(2) But there is a second result of the right life which ordinary
observation and common sense may estimate. Wisdom is very uncompromising
in her requirement of fair dealing between man and man. She cannot away
with those commercial practices which can only be described as devising
"evil against thy neighbour," who "dwelleth securely by thee."[40] Her
main economic principle is this, that all legitimate trade is the mutual
advantage of buyer and seller; where the seller is seeking to dupe the
buyer, and the buyer is seeking to rob the seller, trade ceases, and the
transaction is the mere inworking of the devil. Wisdom is quite aware
that by these ways of the devil wealth may be accumulated; she is not
blind to the fact that the overreaching spirit of greed has its rich and
splendid reward; but she maintains none the less that "the curse of the
Lord is in the house of the wicked; but He blesseth the habitation of
the righteous."[41]
It is a very impressive experience to enter the house of a great
magnate whose wealth has been obtained by questionable means. The
rooms are beautiful; works by the great masters shed their radiance of
eternal truth from the walls; the library gleams with the well-bound
books of moralists and religious teachers. The sons and daughters of
the house are fair and elegant; the smile of prosperity is in every
curtained and carpeted room, and seems to beam out of every
illuminated window; and yet the sensitive spirit cannot be rid of the
idea that "the curse of the Lord is in the house."
On the other hand, the honourable man whose paths have been directed
by the Lord, no matter whether he be wealthy or merely in receipt, as
the result of a life's labour, of his "daily bread," has a blessing in
his house. Men trust him and honour him.[42] His wealth flows as a
fertilizing stream, or if it run dry, his friends, who love him for
himself, make him feel that it was a good thing to lose it in order to
find them. In proportion as the fierce struggle of competition has
made the path of fair dealing more difficult, they who walk in it are
the more honoured and loved. Nowhere does Wisdom smile more graciously
or open her hand to bless more abundantly, than in the later years of
a life which has in its earlier days been exposed, and has offered a
successful resistance, to the strong temptations of unrighteous gain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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