Biblion Bible Commentary
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Further Sayings of the Wise
Proverbs 24:23-34
23 These also are sayings of the wise: To show partiality in judgment is not good. · WEB
A short appended collection ends with a man walking past a ruined vineyard and drawing the conclusion himself.
A new heading marks a small collection of its own, and its first concern is the courtroom. To show partiality in judgment is not good, followed by what happens to a judge who acquits the guilty: peoples will curse him, and nations will abhor him. The scale of the reaction is deliberate. A corrupt verdict in a small town draws the contempt of nations, because a court that cannot be trusted is a public fact.
The positive form is unusually warm: it will go well with those who convict the guilty, and a rich blessing will come on them. And then a verse that reads like nothing else in the book: An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips. Plain speech is compared to the most direct expression of affection there is. It is the collection's highest praise for candor. It assumes that being told the truth feels like being loved.
One saying is pure practical sequencing and it has outlived its agricultural setting. Prepare your work outside, and get your fields ready. Afterwards, build your house. Income before comfort. The field feeds the household. A man who builds first has a fine house and nothing to put in it. Nothing is said against the house.
The collection then closes with a story, and the shift from instruction to narrative is the point. I went by the field of the sluggard, by the vineyard of the man void of understanding. What he saw is described in three details, each a stage of neglect. Thorns everywhere, nettles covering the ground, and the stone wall broken down. The wall is the worst of them. A vineyard without a wall is open to animals and thieves, and its collapse means the neglect has been going on for years.
Then the response: I saw, and considered well. I saw, and received instruction. He did not confront the man or report the field. He looked, thought about it, and took the lesson himself. And the lesson he recites is a saying already in the book from chapter 6, about a little sleep and a little folding of the hands. A collection of maxims ends by showing where a maxim comes from. Somebody walked past something and paid attention.
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