20
📚Wine is a mocker, strong drink rages 📖, and whoever is deceived by it is not wise.
2 📚The fear of a king is like
the roaring of a lion;
whoever provokes him to anger
wrongs his own soul.
3 📚It is an honour for a man
to avoid strife,
but every fool will quarrel.
4 📚The lazy man will not plow because
of the cold;
therefore he will beg in harvest,
and have nothing.
5 📚Counsel in the heart of man is like
deep water,
but a man of understanding will draw it out.
6 📚Most men will proclaim each
his own goodness,
but a faithful man who can find?
20:6 Ps 12:1; Eccl 7:28-29; Micah 7:2. There is One who is eternally faithful – Deut 7:9; Ps 36:5; 89:1; 92:2; Isa 11:5; 25:1; Lam 3:23; 1 Cor 1:9; 10:13; 1 Thess 5:24; 2 Thess 3:3; Heb 2:17; 1 Pet 4:19; 1 John 1:9; Rev 19:11. And God can and does make His people faithful – Num 12:7; Neh 7:2; Matt 25:21; Luke 16:10; 1 Cor 4:2; 7:25; Eph 1:1; Col 1:2, 7; 1 Tim 1:12; 2 Tim 2:2; Rev 2:10; 17:14.⚜
7 📚The just man walks
in his integrity;
his children are blessed after him.
8 📚A king who sits on the throne of judgment
dispels all evil with his eyes.
9 📚Who can say, “I have made my heart clean,
I am pure from my sin?”
20:9 The Lord Jesus alone of all whoever lived on earth could truthfully claim to be sinless (John 8:46; 2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15; 7:26; 1 Pet 2:22, 24; 1 John 3:5). All the rest of us are born with a sinful nature and have sinned (Job 14:4; Ps 14:2-3; 51:5; Rom 3:9, 23). But God can cleanse us from sin and make us pure in His sight (Ps 51:2, 7, 10; Isa 1:18; Zech 13:1; Titus 2:11-14; Heb 9:14; 1 John 1:9), and can enable us to live the blameless life mentioned in v 7. See notes on Psalms 14 and 15.⚜
10 📚Varying weights and
varying measures,
both of them alike are an abomination
to the LORD.
11 📚Even a child is known by his actions,
whether his deeds are pure and right.
12 📚The hearing ear, and the seeing eye,
the LORD has made both of them.
13 📚Do not love sleep,
so that you do not come to poverty;
open your eyes, and you will have
enough food to be satisfied.
14 📚“It is nothing,
it is nothing!” says the buyer,
but when he has gone his way, then he boasts.
15 📚There is gold, and an abundance of rubies,
but the lips of knowledge are
a precious jewel.
16 📚Take the garment of the one
who puts up security for a stranger,
and take a pledge from him for
a strange woman.
17 📚Bread obtained by deceit is
sweet to a man,
but afterwards his mouth will be filled
with gravel.
20:17 The pleasures of sin are only for a little while.⚜
18 📚Prepare plans by getting counsel,
and make war through good advice.
19 📚He who goes around as
a talebearer reveals secrets;
therefore have nothing to do with him
who flatters with his lips.
20 📚Whoever curses his father or his mother,
his lamp will be put out in deep darkness.
21 📚An inheritance may be
quickly obtained in the beginning,
but in the end it will not be blessed.
20:21 Compare Luke 15:11-16.⚜
22 📚Do not say, “I will repay evil”, but
wait on the LORD, and he will save you.
23 📚Varying weights are an abomination
to the LORD,
and a false balance is not good.
20:23 Verse 10.⚜
24 📚Man’s steps are directed
by the LORD;
how then can a man understand his own way?
20:24 Prov 16:9; 21:1; Jer 10:23. God’s ways are beyond tracing out (Rom 11:33). He makes man’s way also past tracing out. No man understands very much of what he really is and why he does what he does, and what the whole meaning of his life is, and how it is all interwoven with God’s purposes. But God understands it all (Jer 17:9-10).⚜
25 📚It is a snare for a man
to rashly dedicate what is holy,
and after vows to reconsider.
20:25 Perhaps a translation just as good as, or possibly better than this would be “It is a snare for a man to say rashly This is dedicated and after vows to reconsider it”.⚜
26 📚A wise king winnows the wicked,
and drives the threshing
wheel over them.
20:26 See notes on Ps 101.⚜
27 📚The spirit of man is the lamp
of the Lord,
searching all the inmost being.
20:27 1 Cor 2:11. The Lord uses this “lamp” to search men and make them conscious of what goes on in their inner being.⚜
28 📚Mercy and truth preserve the king,
and his throne is upheld by mercy.
29 📚The glory of young men is their strength,
and the beauty of old men is
the gray head.
30 📚Blows that wound cleanse away evil;
just so beatings cleanse
the inmost being.