Proverbs 24:30

Pro 24:30 I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;

Ver. 30. I went by the field of the slothful.] Not purposely to spy faults - for Nemo curiosus quin malevolus - but my business lay that way, and I was willing to make the best of everything that came before me.

By the vineyard of the man void of understanding.] Heb., That had no heart; that is, that made no use of it - that was not egregie cordatus homo, as one describes a wise man.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pro_24:30-34

I went by the field of the slothful.

The moral sluggard

Take these words as a pointed reproof of the negligent and immoral head of a family. The cause of prevailing irreligion is the deplorable negligence of masters and heads of families, in cultivating that field which is more immediately placed under their inspection and care.

1. The fatal consequences of irreligious sloth and negligence in those whom Providence hath raised up to be the heads of families. Families are the nurseries of the Church and state: it is from them that every department of life is filled up. Who is the slothful man? It is the moral sluggard whom the inspired writer has in view--the man who shows his children and servants, by all his pursuits, that this world is all for which they need to care. He neglects the important seasons and opportunities for moral culture. He does not teach them the duties which they owe to one another and to society. He may permit them to be instructed by others, but he does not support the instruction by his own influence and example. See the consequences of this negligence illustrated in the sluggards garden. Being destitute of rule, management, or control, his children absorb every wrong sentiment with their earliest sense, and are more and more corrupted with every breath they draw. There is no order, calmness, moderation, or self-command among the members of his family.

2. The futility of such apologies as are usually made for this negligence. They have not time; they have not capacity; or they do not feel under obligation in this direction. (James Somerville.)

The sluggards farm

On one occasion Solomon looked over the broken wall of a little estate which belonged to a farmer of his country. It consisted of a piece of ploughed land and a vineyard: One glance showed him that it was owned by a sluggard, who neglected it; for the weeds had grown right plentifully, and covered all the face of the ground. From this Solomon gathered instruction. Men generally learn wisdom if they have wisdom. Some look only at the surface, while others see not only the outside shell but the living kernel of truth which is hidden in all outward things. We may find instruction everywhere. We may gather rare lessons from things that we do not like.

I. The description of a slothful man. Solomon was right when he called him a man void of understanding. Not only does he not understand anything, but he has no understanding to understand with. He is empty-headed if he is a sluggard. As a rule we may measure a mans understanding by his useful activities. Certain persons call themselves cultured, and yet they cultivate nothing. If knowledge, culture, education do not lead to practical service of God, we cannot have learned what Solomon calls wisdom. True wisdom is practical; boastful culture vapours and theorises. Wisdom ploughs its field, hoes its vineyard, looks to its crops, tries to make the best of everything; and he who does not do so, whatever may be his knowledge of this, of that, of the other, is a man void of understanding.

1. Because he has opportunities which he does not use.

2. Because being bound to the performance of certain duties he did not fulfil them.

3. Because he has capacities which he does not employ.

4. Because he trifles with matters which demand his most earnest heed. The Christian who is slothful in his Masters service has no idea what he is losing.

II. Look at the sluggards land.

1. Land will produce something; some kind of fruit, good or bad. If you are idle in Gods work you are active in the devils work.

2. If the soul be not farmed for God, it will yield its natural produce. What is the natural produce of land when left to itself?

3. If we are slothful, the natural produce of our heart and of our sphere will be most inconvenient and unpleasant to ourselves.

4. In many instances there will be a great deal of this evil produce.

III. There must be some lesson in all this.

1. Unaided nature will always produce thorns and nettles, and nothing else.

2. See the little value of natural good intentions. This man, who left his field and his vineyard to be overgrown, always meant to work hard one of these fine days. Probably the worst people in the world are those who have the best intentions but never carry them out. Take heed of little delays and short puttings-off. You have wasted time enough already; come to the point at once before the clock strikes again. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The broken fence

The slothful man did no hurt to his fellow-men. He was not grossly vicious; he had not energy enough to care for that. He always let well alone, and for the matter of that, he let ill alone. Yet he always meant to be right.

I. Look at this broken fence. In the beginning it was a good fence, a stone wall. Mention some of the stone walls that men permit to be broken down when they backslide.

1. Sound principles instilled in youth.

2. Solid doctrines which have been learned.

3. Good habits once formed.

4. Week-night services are a stone wall.

5. So is Bible-reading.

6. So is a public profession of faith.

7. So is firmness of character.

II. The consequences of a broken-down fence.

1. The boundary has gone. He does not know which is his Lords property, and which remains an open common.

2. The protection is gone. When a mans heart has its wall broken all his thoughts will go astray, and wander upon the mountains of vanity. Nor is this all, for as good things go out, so bad things come in.

3. The land itself will go away. In many parts of Palestine the land is all ups and downs on the sides of the hills, and every bit of ground is terraced, and kept up by walls. When the walls fall the soil slips over terrace upon terrace, and the vines and trees go down with it; then the rain comes and washes the soil away, and nothing is left but barren crag which would starve a lark. Then I charge you, be sternly true to yourselves and God. Stand to your principles in this evil and wicked day. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The sluggards field

The royal philosopher has his attention drawn to a field and a vineyard in ruins.

1. Each man has a field and a vineyard entrusted to his care--the immortal soul.

2. He is provided with various implements of husbandry, with good seed, sure directions, and animating promises.

3. See the soul, the vineyard of such a labourer. The effects will generally be commensurate with the means used. As we sow we reap.

4. Observe the deplorable condition of the soul described in the text. Here is a desolate and neglected soul which once was cultivated--the backslider. Whence the cause of this sad change? What is the miserable end to be dreaded? (F. Close, M.A.)

The field of the sluggard

The passage is an exquisite picture. The moral of it might have been set boldly in unimaginative prose. Many persons have eyes to see things, but they do not think about what they see. If a really good man sets his heart within him to search through those things that his eyes show him, he is bound to see God. The man who saw this neglected vineyard with his inner eyes saw all that physical ruin and loss and mischief sprang from moral causes. Suffering in our physical and eternal life generally does spring from something wrong in our moral character. This vineyard had gone to ruin because its master was not man enough; he was a sluggard, an indolent fellow. It is a bad thing for a man to be too much his own master. That ruined vineyard had the roots of its ruin in that mans character. He began to be too fond of ease, indulgence, and bodily comfort; he began to lose the pluck and spirit and enterprise that make a man take his pleasure out of his work. If you have not eyes to see what lies in your drudgery and toil, you will not come to much in this world. The progress of becoming a sluggard was a gradual one, and the progress of damage was slow but sure. The man might have taken warning, but there was a process of dilapidation going on in his character. That was the mischief. You cannot scamp your outside work without ruining your character. And it was little bit by little bit. Learn it is a very difficult thing rightly and wisely to see your neighbours faults; but it is a much more difficult thing, though a much more necessary thing, to see your own. (W. E. Elmslie, D.D.)

Character

These words illustrate that field which every man has to cultivate--the field of character. We do not start life with characters ready made. What we have at the outset are but germs and possibilities. Until we have developed these germs for ourselves, their full value is not obtained. God has given life, powers, opportunities; out of these character is formed. This is a mans own property, whether it is good or bad. Character is the true gauge of a mans worth. Character is the only property we can take with us when we leave this world. Some mens fields are partly neglected.

1. There is no fence.

2. There is no fruit.

How comes this waste of precious ground? Traced to one source--self-indulgence. This reveals itself in various ways. In procrastination. In an easy assent to the popular misrepresentations of Christianity. In taking up doubts at second-hand, and parading them as though proof of their superior wisdom. But self-indulgence in every form will bring ruin. And the ruin of self-indulgence is fast approaching. Thy poverty shall come as one that travelleth. There may be seeming delay about its arrival; but there is also certainty. It is even now upon the road. (J. Jackson Goadby.)

The sluggards garden

The owner of this miserable garden was a sluggard. He would not work. So the deterioration went on unchecked, until what was once a beautiful, productive, cleanly-kept garden became a place of the rankest weeds. Here, in this text, is an important principle. People are always complaining that they possess few opportunities for their improvement. Wise men can go to school anywhere. We may learn by other mens mistakes. There are many sluggards.

1. The home sluggard. Usually a woman. Neglected homes lie at the root of much of the misery, sin, and unhappiness of the world to-day.

2. The sluggard in the battle of life. A good-for-nothing--a waster of time, money, and precious opportunities. God has not given us life to idle away. Maybe that something of this sluggish disposition lies within us all, and must be continually struggled with. The men who have done most in life, achieved the greatest fame, and gained its best prizes, have all been steady workers, diligent plodders.

3. The sluggard in the field of conscience. Weeds always grow quickly, though imperceptibly. There is a law of degeneration. It may be stated in this way: Let a thing alone, and it is certain to deteriorate. It is thus in the realm of conscience. There is nothing more dangerous than procrastination in the affairs of the soul and conscience. Many a man is aware of evil habits, and intends to give them up by and by. They never are given up in that way. Let your life alone, and you will awaken some day in awful astonishment at the depths to which you have sunk. Give up indolence and procrastination, then. (Wm. Hay, B.D.)

Idleness

I. It is foolish. Solomon characterises this indolent man as one void of understanding. therein do you see this mans folly? In the flagrant neglect of his own interests. You may cultivate your field by proxy, but you can only cultivate your soul yourself.

II. It is procrastinating.

III. It is ruinous.

1. Consider the wretched condition to which his estate was reduced. Lo, it was all grown over with thorns, etc. It might have waved in golden grain.

Two things suggested by the words.

1. That the ruin is gradual in its approach. It does not burst on you at once, like a thunder-storm.

2. The ruin is terrible in its consummation. As an armed man. It will seize you as with the grasp of an indignant warrior. (D. Thomas, D.D.)

The sluggards vineyard

I. Survey this waste vineyard.

1. We can see nothing but weeds. The outgrowths of the depraved heart yield no real revenue to man. Covetousness, malice, vain thoughts, evil desires, unbelief.

2. How luxuriantly they grow! Our evil propensities must, if unchecked by grace, increase.

3. There are various kinds of growth. Thorns and nettles. There may be a man of one book, business, virtue--but not of one evil propensity.

4. They are all harmful. Thorns to lacerate; nettles to sting.

5. The wall is broken. Anybody might sow there, or water the unprofitable crop--except the good sower, and he must enter by the door. God saves us from our sluggishness, not in it.

II. Why it remains in this deplorable condition. Ignorance that will not learn, and slothfulness that will not work.

III. Expostulate with the sluggard.

1. The vineyard is not your own.

2. Think what this vineyard might produce. Grapes for the cup of the King--fruit for days of sickness--refreshment for old age.

3. In its present state it is harmful to your neighbours. The thistle-down will float far and wide.

IV. In conclusion, some words of earnest counsel.

1. Come forth from your couch of indifference and resolutely inspect this desolate scene.

2. Do not seek to satisfy conscience by pulling a weed here and there. It must be thoroughly delved; ploughed up. Ye must be born again.

3. Do not be content with showing a few wild grapes. (R. A. Griffin.)

The vineyard of the sluggard

Some preachers teach morality without showing its vital connection with the gospel. Some fall into the opposite error, and fail to exhibit the ethical side of the gospel.

I. The field of the sluggard teaches that it is wrong to abuse what we regard as our own. The sluggard might contend that the garden was his own. The assumption is unfounded, and even blasphemous.

1. It is a sigh of gross disloyalty to God, who prefers an absolute claim to our life and service.

2. It involves a serious loss to our fellow-creatures, because the wind carries the seeds of our neglect into our neighbours garden. Apply to moral influence.

II. The possession of advantages, so far from absolving us from the necessity of labour and self-culture, renders them more necessary. The area of our responsibility coincides with the area of our possessions.

1. The cultivation of the body is a sacred obligation.

2. The mind is a vineyard that ought to be cultivated.

3. There is, too, the vineyard of the heart.

III. Neglect, as well as wilful wickedness, move in the direction of destruction. Observe that not only was the soil covered with noxious growths, but the means of protection were destroyed.

IV. Good men will learn from the follies and miseries of wicked men. Such instruction is gathered by observation and reflection. The two principal methods of acquiring wisdom. Observation collects facts, reflection arranges and applies them, converting them into solid nutriment for mind and heart. (Preachers Magazine.)

The slothful pastor

1. To every minister of God there is entrusted a field and a vineyard.

2. God supplies his labourer with various implements of husbandry, with good seed and providential opportunities.

3. God makes special promises to every devoted husbandman.

4. What a blessed sight is the field and vineyard of such a labourer!

5. But consider the different picture drawn in the text. What is so affecting as the contemplation of a neglected parish? How is this to be accounted for? This is the field of the slothful, and the vineyard of the man void of understanding.

What is the peoples duty, in the consideration of such a subject as this?

1. Let us all be anxious to avail ourselves of the religious privileges which we possess.

2. If it is our misfortune to have a slothful husbandman, let us not desert the Church, but unite in prayer for him and wait on God in meek submission to His will. (F. Close, M.A.)

The fools vineyard

In every age the sluggard and the fool have had their place, as well as the labourer and the wise man.

I. The scene shows us that if we will not have flowers and fruits we shall certainly have thorns and nettles. We cannot set aside the laws of nature. There is a law of growth in the very ground. It is the same with the character of man. We cannot simply do nothing. Life has its laws. We may pay them no heed, but they will assert themselves notwithstanding.

1. A man may resolve not to cultivate his mind. What then? The weeds of false notions, the thorns and nettles of prejudice, will prove his intellectual indolence.

2. A man may neglect to cultivate his moral nature. He will have nothing to do with religion. What then? Look at his false ideas, his superstition, his narrowness, his want of veneration, his superficial judgments, the weeds that have grown up.

II. The sluggard and the fool cannot hide the results of their neglect.

1. We cannot confine the results of a wasted life within our own bounds.

2. This being the case, we have not a right to do with what we call our own as we please. There is nothing which we can strictly call our own. Society will not allow us to do what we please with our own.

III. It is possible to be right in some particulars and to be grievously wrong in others. The legal right of the slothful man to the possession of the field might be undisputed. The vineyard might have fallen into the hands of the fool by strict lawful descent. So far so good. The case is on this side perfectly sound. Yet possession was not followed by cultivation. It is not enough to possess; we must increase. You ought not to allow even a house to fall into decay. There is no right of abuse. You have not a right to be dirty, to be ignorant, to be careless of life; on that line no rights have ever been established.

IV. The scene shows that even the worst abuses may be turned to good account. The good man is an example; the bad man is a warning.

1. You will see that the finest possessions may be wasted; property, talent, influence, opportunity.

2. You will see that wickedness always moves in the direction of destruction. It must do so. All indolence must go down. All sin forces itself in the direction of perdition. How did the wise man know that the man was void of understanding? By the state of his vineyard. Know a man by his surroundings, know him by his habits; there is character in everything. (J. Parker, D.D.)

Mental cultivation essential to the souls salvation

The immortal soul, although one and indivisible as its Author, yet, like a large estate, is divided into various sections, as the understanding, the memory, and the affections.

1. The intellectual faculty is the understanding. If not cultivated, it will produce an attendant crop of evil thoughts and vain imaginations, which, like thorns and nettles, will injuriously affect the soul.

2. Another property of the soul to be cultivated is the memory, and unless that is attended to, all the other would be like casting seed by the wayside.

3. Another section of the soul is that of the affections which are ever disposed to run wild, and want continual pruning and training, to guide them in a right direction. The heart is liable to alight upon objects that may pierce it with many sorrows, to prevent which the most efficient remedy is to have the mind occupied as much as possible in contemplation of eternal blessings. If the mind were to dwell on the attributes of the Deity, especially as the God of love, it would expand with delight as the blossom to the sun. (William Neville, M.A.)

Practical views of human life

How much have we profited, in the character of servants of God, by what we have seen of men? How much more wise in the best sense, conscientious, apt, effectually warned? The world should be regarded as an extensive outer department of the great school of religion. The things which the servant of God is taught in the inner school he is to observe illustrated, exemplified, proved, and enforced in this wide, outer department. When the learner in Gods peculiar school goes out to observe mankind he will think of the manner and cautions and rules for turning what he sees to the most beneficial account, and the most instructive points to fix his attention upon. An obvious one is, let not his observing be merely of the nature of speculation, not simply a seeing and judging what men are. Our knowledge of men must be diligently applied to a salutary use, especially for ourselves. Another point of admonition is--against prejudice and arrogance in observing and judging. Men often have some prepossession, and everything is forced into conformity to that. Or they have a set of judgments, estimates, shaped ready in their minds, and upon the slightest circumstance they will instantly fix one of them on a fellow-mortal. Some men assume to have an infallible insight, and perfect comprehension on all occasions; and pronounce as if there could be no appeal. Another warning is, beware of taking pleasure in perceiving and ascertaining what is wrong in man. Another rule is, take care that observations on other men are not suffered to go to the effect of our being better pleased with ourselves. There is a strange tendency to a gratified pride in our own supposed virtues; and to a most indulgent judgment of the things which even the grossest self-love cannot wholly approve. Our whole system and practice in the observation of the world should be resolutely formed on this principle, that our own correction is the grand object to be faithfully and constantly kept in view. Some more special observations may be given. Think of the probable difference between our judgments of the persons we look upon and their own judgments of themselves. In observing mankind we perceive, to a great extent, a sad deficiency or depravation of conscience; what a trifle they can make of many most important discriminations between good and evil. From this sight should not a solemn admonition come to us? One of the most conspicuous things to be noticed in looking on mankind is--how temptation operates and prevails. From this there should be an instructed vigilance for ourselves and appropriate prayers. A mournful thing to notice will be the great errors, the lapses, of good men. Reflect how unsafe any man, every man, is, but as God preserves him. Observe, too, the effect of situation and circumstance. How much they form mens notions, consciences, and habits as to good and evil. Observe errors of judgment--opinions; how they arise, become fixed, or are perverted. Take note of all worthier things, exemplary virtues, graces, wisdom. It is delightful to turn for instruction to these. (John Foster.)

The sluggards garden

The scene is familiar in Syria, where the intense heat and frequent rains so stimulate all wild and natural growths that a few months of neglect suffice to convert even the most carefully tilled plot and the most carefully tended vineyard into a scene of desolation. Under the pressure of an Eastern climate noxious weeds and brambles suck the soils fertility from wholesome plants and flowers with an astonishing and alarming rapidity. Not that similar catastrophes are unknown even in England; but, with us, it takes longer to produce them. Most of us must have seen plots where once a fair garden grew, which, in the course of a few years neglect, were all overrun with coltsfoot, dock, nettles, groundsel, and other foul weeds. It is not simply, as a careful observer has pointed out, that land once under the plough or the spade loses, when it is left untended, the special and wholesome growth with which it has been planted. The deterioration goes farther than that. For the flora which follows the plough, or the spade, is much more varied and delicate and beautiful than that of the unbroken land. And when tilled land is suffered to fall back into the hands of Nature, all these more delicate and beautiful wild flowers are supplanted by gorse and bramble, nettle and dock, and, above all, by the close, wiry grass which usurps and covers so many of our commons. Even where the plants in a neglected garden are not altogether supplanted and dispossessed, an ominous process of degeneration sets in. The flowers, once tended with so much care and grown to such perfection, revert to an earlier and inferior type; they lose form, colour, perfume; the large voluptuous garden roses, with their infinite variety and infinite wealth of hue, sink back into the primitive dog-rose of our hedges, and the whole race of choice, cultivated geraniums into the cranesbill of the copse and the wayside. This, then, is the parable. Neglect a garden, and it soon loses all its value, all its distinction. It is either overrun with wilder and less worthy growths, or the plants which once either gave it beauty or ministered to the wants of man degenerate into a baser type, and no longer yield fruit that he cares to eat or flowers that he cares to pluck. And the moral is as simple and direct as it well can be (Pro_24:33-34). It is a warning to the man void of understanding and energy, that an utter destitution, a shameful misery, is the proper and inevitable result of his folly and sloth. We need not go far to find facts which prove the truth of this warning, and the need for it. If we go into the nearest workhouse ward, it is not too much to say that half the miserable paupers we meet there ought not to be there; they have sunk into pauperism not by sheer misfortune, not by the pressure of accidents they were unable to resist, but by a creeping indolence, by self-neglect, by vice, by the failure of speculations to which they were driven by their impatience of honest labour with its slow rewards, by a love of pleasure or self-indulgence which held them back from that whole-hearted industry and devotion to daily toil by which alone men can thrive. If we go to any dock or labour yard in which men earn a miserable pittance by unskilled and precarious labour, again we are well within the mark if we reckon that half the men we find there ought never to have been there, and would not have been there had they diligently availed themselves of the opportunities of the several positions from which they have fallen. If we go into any family, shall we not find in it a lad who has no decided leaning to any vocation, who doesnt much care what he does, and who in his heart of hearts would rather do nothing at all, whether for himself or for the world, if only he could live by it? If we go into any school or college, shall we not be still more fortunate if, for one boy or man bent on study, bent on learning and acquiring as much as he may, and so cultivating all the good growths and habits of the soul, we find no more than one who is content to scramble through his work anyhow, who will not learn a jot more than he can help, who throws away opportunity after opportunity, and is throwing away, with his opportunities, his chances of service and distinction? No thoughtful observer of human life will for a moment admit that laziness is a defunct sin, or that the sluggard is rapidly becoming extinct. He is everywhere; and, wherever he is, the process of degeneration has set in and needs to be checked. And how shall it be checked, how shall the man void of understanding be recovered to a useful and diligent life, if not by the warning that, by the very course and constitution of his nature, indolence breeds its own punishment? The moral, then, is by no means tame or impertinent to the present conditions of men. But we need not confine ourselves to the Hebrew poets point of view. As we stand by his side, and look with him over the wall of the once fair garden, now all overgrown with nettles that sting and thorns that tear, we may raise the law of which he speaks to its highest plane, and view it in its more directly spiritual aspect. Emphatic as is the direct teaching of this proverb, says Dr. Plumptre, it may be taken as a parable of something yet deeper. The field and the vineyard are more than the mans earthly possessions. His neglect brings barrenness or desolation in the garden of the soul. Nor is it in the least difficult to trace the working of this law in the garden of the soul. It is not enough that we once believed and obeyed. It is not enough that we once waged open war against evil, and ardently pursued that which is good. If we have settled down into a quiet and easy enjoyment of our very religion; if we are not watchful and diligent, resolute and untiring; if we cannot work in all weathers; if we shrink from every call to do something for God and man, or begin to calculate how little we can do, instead of how much; if we make no sacrifice for the sake of truth and righteousness, or mourn and complain over every sacrifice we are compelled to make; if we cease to strive vigorously, with clear and firm determination, against the evil forces and inclinations by which we are constantly beset; if we no longer care to learn any new truth that may break forth from Gods holy Word or from the patient researches of men; if, instead of recognising and rejoicing in any new aspect of duty, any new form of service, we are growing lax and indifferent even in the discharge of duties we once loved--sluggardliness is beginning to eat into our heart, our faith, our life; the good growths of the soul are beginning to deteriorate and decay, and its evil growths to wax bold and masterful. If nothing less will rouse and arrest us, let us remember that, by the very course and constitution of nature, by a law which admits of no exception, mere indolence, mere neglect, merely being quiet and at ease, mere failure to grow and make increase to ourselves in good thoughts, good feeling, good deeds, is to sink toward the evils we most dread, from which we have been redeemed, and which ought not therefore any longer to have power over us. It is to revert to our original and inferior type; and to revert to that will only too surely be the first step toward sinking to a type still lower and more hopeless. A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to rest when they ought to be lifted up for the labour which is prayer, and our poverty may come on us apace, and our want--the lack and destitution natural and inevitable to our sinking and neglected condition--may spring upon us like an armed man. (S. Cox, D.D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pro 24:30-34. I went by the field of the slothful — For the counsel intended to be conveyed by this paragraph, see note on Pro 6:6-11. I looked upon it and received instruction — I learned wisdom by his folly, and by his gross idleness was provoked to greater care and diligence.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Pro_24:30-34

THE SLUGGARD’S VINEYARD

I. We have here a precious possession in the hands of an unworthy proprietor. A vineyard is not a heritage of little or no value—if rightly cared for and cultivated it will yield to its owner the means of obtaining an honest living, and, it may be, put him in possession of wealth. Many a toiling, struggling man without an inch of ground on God’s earth to call his own would feel as if he had nothing left to desire if he had such a barrier between himself and poverty, and would joyfully toil from dawn to sunset to make the best of that which God’s providence had entrusted to him. But here is property which would be prized and cultivated by many in the hands of one who neglects and wastes it. The picture of our text is a parabolic representation of what is before our eyes every day. A vineyard of bodily strength is given to a man who by dissipation breaks down its wall and invites disease to enter. A vineyard of opportunities is inherited by a slothful youth who is too indolent and careless to improve them. The vineyard of a vast fortune or of a position of great influence is entrusted to one who is “void of understanding”—who does not realise his responsibility to God or to men.

II. We have man, by neglecting to use God’s gifts, limiting God’s power to bless him. It was God’s purpose that this vineyard should bring forth better things than thorns and nettles. He desired to see it covered with choice vines, whose branches should be loaded with clusters of refreshing fruit. But this could not be unless man would be a co-worker with Him. God did his part. The rain watered the soil, the sun shone upon it, but man refused to dig and plant, to weed and cultivate. And by withholding his power to labour he limited God’s power to bless. Men do the same in other fields of labour, and in connection with other opportunities of receiving the Divine blessing. Many good gifts come alike to the slothful and to the industrious man—to him who diligently “keeps” his vineyard and to him who neglects it. God makes His sun to shine, and sends His rain upon the fields of both. But in the one case sun and rain find a soil prepared to receive the full benefit of the blessings they can give, and in the other they can only strengthen the hold of the weeds upon the earth, and so increase the unfruitfulness of the vineyard. So men often limit God’s power to bless them by His providence. Opportunities are given to them of bringing great blessings upon themselves or upon others, but only on condition that they labour earnestly and diligently at some work which God gives them to do. They may be called only to the special cultivation of their own intellectual and spiritual powers, or they may also be in a position to transform others from weeds in the social and moral vineyard into plants of beauty and trees yielding fruit. But whether the field open to them is a wide one, or comparatively narrow, all God’s willingness to give the increase will be of no avail if they refuse to till the ground and sow the seed.

III. We have a swift and sure-footed avenger advancing to awaken the slothful sleeper. That slumber, though long and deep, will not go on for ever. It would indeed be unjust to the active and industrious man if the slothful never felt the consequences of his indolence. But this would be contrary to the laws by which God governs the world. One of these laws is, that bodily want, or intellectual or spiritual beggary, will in due time overtake him who neglects to exercise the faculties and capabilities which God has given him to enrich every part of his nature.

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS

This is a picture of sloth. At the same time it is a picture of sloth under attacks upon our faith. The world moves on, and, in our laziness, our garden gets all choked with new dogmas against the gospel. The writer has already said that we are not to yield to “them that are given to change” (Pro_24:21). He has also said that we are not to answer them with deceit (Pro_24:23): and, now, what remains? Why, that we baffle them, that we work as hard as they do. I know no proverb more useful for the men of our times. We lie upon our lees till we think philosophy a sort of wickedness; till we think quiet under its advances a sort of Christian faith. We let science work on, till, by sap and mine, it is near our citadel. Great bodies of learned work are built up while the Church sleeps. If she fights, it is with a sort of chicane, with the gongs and bright paper, like a Chinese troop; when duty plainly is, to work up abreast of science. If the Church has more light, she must expect more contest. If she has better arms, she must expect more battles; with more mind, of course more to oppose; otherwise she has less to do than less capable believers. The world’s science must be met by the Church’s science, and new, sturdy brambles in her prolific fields must be ploughed under by improved implements. Otherwise, old-time arguments, and a sort of a chicane of a retort; responses like those of women, rather intended to say No than to be an actual reply, become indicative of a sluggard-Church, and of a garden cumbered like that before us. Slothful, literally sluggard man. Man is here the better sort of man (see Miller’s comment of Pro_24:5); in the last clause it is “a common man.” The first has a field, the other a vineyard. All classes of men are bound to read up and get rid of occasions for cavil.… “The wall;” necessary to keep a church at all. Let scientists trample in upon the vineyard with nothing but a few old clothes to scare them, and presently we will have no Church whatever. Not “stone wall” (E. V.), but “the wall, as to its stones,” “pulled down.” It will not slowly crumble, but interested parties will help it when it begins to totter. “I saw, or looked.” Seeing such things requires an effort. Not the slothful man’s business alone! but mine! I am sufficiently like him. A vineyard with brambles, like that of Geneva, or England, or that of the cis-Atlantic Socinian States, is a picture for all mankind.… “Come, etc.,” “sauntering along,” Hithpael of walk. “Armed man.” Both these descriptions mean

(1) slowness, and

(2) certainty;

(1) unobserved ease of gait; but,

(2) doomlike certainty in coming. A Church that enjoys her ease may super-eminently prosper. Her foe may be behind the hill, and her doom may be sauntering noiselessly up, but their coming is as certain as the dawn.… A “little sleep” more, and the thing has been actually achieved.—Miller.

Let us learn from the scene described:

1. How gradual may be the approaches of the evils of sloth, while, at the same time, they are irresistible in the end. This is the lesson of the thirty-fourth verse. The traveller approaches by degrees. When comparatively at a distance, he appears harmless; but, when he has advanced a certain length, he is discovered to be “an armed man,”—all resistance to whom is too late, and consequently vain. Famine, though gaunt, is irresistibly mighty. Who can stand before it? Not the man of habitual sloth. The very habit has the more thoroughly incapacitated him for plucking up any spirit to ward off the final ravages of the frightful enemy. He succumbs, sinks, and dies.—

2. Our souls are committed by God to our own spiritual cultivation. This is no sinecure. They will not thrive themselves. If we would have them “as a watered garden, and as a field which the Lord hath blessed,” we must apply spiritual activity and labour, to stock them with the appropriate graces, affections, and virtues, and to promote the growth and productiveness of them all. We must sow the seed, and seek by prayer the showers of the Divine blessing—the promised influences of the Divine Spirit. We must watch over the germination, the springing, the growth, and the fructifying of the seed. Without this all will be stunted and sterile. The noxious and unsightly weeds of sin will spring and luxuriate, and overspread the soil; all growing that ought not to grow, and nothing growing that should. Let parents apply the principle to the spiritual instruction of their children. Your families are as vineyards committed to your care and culture. Imagine not that, when left to themselves, they will spontaneously yield good fruit. The experience of all generations reads you an opposite lesson. You must enclose; you must dig, and sow, and water, and watch, and protect the springing blade, till it comes to the ear, and the full corn in the ear. You must train from their earliest germs your tender plants, and guard, and support, and prune them, and clear and manure the soil around them. The incessant care of both parents must be bestowed upon this; and all little enough. They must look for the help and for the blessing of God. O see to it, that the verses before us be not a just description of any of your families—from your parental negligence, indifference, and sloth. Let every family be as a sacred enclosure for God; fenced in from the blasts and blights of the world, where the “plants of his right hand’s planting” are reared from the seed, for future productiveness.—Wardlaw.

Pro_24:32. The owner did nothing for the farm, and the farm did nothing for the owner. But even this neglected spot did something for the passing wayfarer, who had an observant eye and a thoughtful mind. Even the sluggard’s garden brought forth fruit, but not for the sluggard’s benefit. The diligent man reaped, and carried off the only harvest that it bore—a warning. The owner received nothing from it; and the onlooker “received instruction”.… People complain that they have few opportunities and means of instruction. Here is one school open to all. Here is a school-master who charges no fee. If we are ourselves diligent, we may gather riches even in a sluggard’s garden. He who knows how to turn the folly of his neighbours into wisdom for himself, cannot excuse defective attainments by alleging a scarcity of the raw material.—Arnot.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Proverbs

THE SLUGGARD’S GARDEN

Pro 24:30 - Pro 24:31.

This picture of the sluggard’s garden seems to be intended as a parable. No doubt its direct simple meaning is full of homely wisdom in full accord with the whole tone of the Book of Proverbs; but we shall scarcely do justice to this saying of the wise if we do not see in ‘the ground grown over with thorns,’ and ‘the stone wall thereof broken down,’ an apologue of the condition of a soul whose owner has neglected to cultivate and tend it.

I. Note first who the slothful man is.

The first plain meaning of the word is to be kept in view. The whole Book of Proverbs brands laziness as the most prolific source of poverty. Honest toil is to it the law of life. It is never weary of reiterating ‘In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread’; and it condemns all swift modes of getting riches without labour. No doubt the primitive simplicity of life as set forth in this book seems far behind the many ingenuities by which in our days the law is evaded. How much of Stock Exchange speculation and ‘Company promoter’s gambling would survive the application of the homely old law?

But it is truer in the inward life than in the outward that ‘the hand of the diligent maketh rich.’ After all, the differences between men who truly ‘succeed’ and the human failures, which are so frequent, are more moral than intellectual. It has been said that genius is, after all, ‘the capacity for taking infinite pains’; and although that is an exaggerated statement, and an incomplete analysis, there is a great truth in it, and it is the homely virtue of hard work which tells in the long run, and without which the most brilliant talents effect but little. However gifted a man may be, he will be a failure if he has not learned the great secret of dogged persistence in often unwelcomed toil. No character worth building up is built without continuous effort. If a man does not labour to be good, he will surely become bad. It is an old axiom that no man attains superlative wickedness all at once, and most certainly no man leaps to the height of the goodness possible to his nature by one spring. He has laboriously, and step by step, to climb the hill. Progress in moral character is secured by long-continued walking upwards, not by a jump.

We note that in our text ‘the slothful’ is paralleled by ‘the man void of understanding’; and the parallel suggests the stupidity in such a world as this of letting ourselves develop according to whims, or inclinations, or passions; and also teaches that ‘understanding’ is meant to be rigidly and continuously brought to bear on actions as director and restrainer. If the ship is not to be wrecked on the rocks or to founder at sea, Wisdom’s hand must hold the helm. Diligence alone is not enough unless directed by ‘understanding.’

II. What comes of sloth.

The description of the sluggard’s garden brings into view two things, the abundant, because unchecked, growth of profitless weeds, and the broken down stone wall. Both of these results are but too sadly and evidently true in regard to every life where rigid and continuous control has not been exercised. It is a familiar experience known, alas! to too many of us, that evil things, of which the seeds are in us all, grow up unchecked if there be not constant supervision and self-command. If we do not carefully cultivate our little plot of garden ground, it will soon be overgrown by weeds. ‘Ill weeds grow apace’ as the homely wisdom of common experience crystallises into a significant proverb. And Jesus has taught the sadder truth that ‘thorns spring up and choke the word and it becometh unfruitful.’ In the slothful man’s soul evil will drive out good as surely as in the struggle for existence the thorns and nettles will cover the face of the slothful man’s garden. In country places we sometimes come across a ruined house with what was a garden round it, and here and there still springs up a flower seeking for air and light in the midst of a smothering mass of weeds. They needed no kindly gardener’s hand to make them grow luxuriantly; can barely put out a pale petal unless cared for and guarded.

But not only is there this unchecked growth, but ‘the stone wall thereof was broken down.’ The soul was unfenced. The solemn imperative of duty ceases to restrain or to impel in proportion as a man yields slothfully to the baser impulses of his nature. Nothing is hindered from going out of, nor for coming into, an unfenced soul, and he that ‘hath no rule over his own spirit,’ but is like a ‘city broken down without walls,’ is certain sooner or later to let much go forth from that spirit that should have bean rigidly shut up, and to let many an enemy come in that will capture the city. It is not yet safe to let any of the fortifications fall into disrepair, and they can only be kept in their massive strength by continuous vigilance.

III. How sloth excuses itself.

Our text is followed at the distance of one verse with what seemed to be the words of the sluggard in answer to the attempt to awake him: ‘Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.’ They are a quotation from an earlier chapter {Pro 6:1 - Pro 6:35} where ‘His Laziness’ is sent to ‘consider the ways of the ant and be wise.’ They are a drowsy petition which does not dispute the wisdom of the call to awake, but simply craves for a little more luxurious laziness from which he has unwillingly been aroused. And is it not true that we admit too late the force of the summons and yet shrink from answering it? Do we not cheat ourselves and try to deceive God with the promise that we will set about amendment soon? This indolent sleeper asks only for a little: ‘A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.’ Do we not all know that mood of mind which confesses our slothfulness and promises to be wide awake tomorrow but would fain bargain to be left undisturbed today? The call ‘Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead!’ rings from Christ’s lips in the ears of every man, and he who answers, ‘I will presently, but must sleep a little longer,’ may seem to himself to have complied with the call, but has really refused it. The ‘little more’ generally becomes much more; and the answer ‘presently’ alas! too often becomes the answer ‘never.’ When a man is roused so as to be half awake, the only safety for him is immediately to rise and clothe himself; the head that drowsily droops back on the pillow after he has heard the morning’s call, is likely to lie there long. Now, not ‘by-and-by’ is the time to shake off the bonds of sloth to cultivate our garden.

IV. How sloth ends.

The sleeper’s slumber is dramatically represented as being awakened by armed robbers who bring a grim awakening. ‘Poverty’ and ‘want’ break in on his ‘folding hands to sleep.’ That is true as regards the outward life, where indulgence in literal slothfulness brings want, and the whole drift of things executes on the sluggard the sentence that if ‘any man will not work, neither shall he eat.’

But the picture is more sadly and fatally true concerning the man who has made his earthly life ‘a little sleep’ as concerns heavenly things, and in spite of his beseechings, is roused to life and consciousness of himself and of God by death. That man’s ‘poverty’ in his lack of all that is counted as wealth in the world of realities to which he goes will indeed come as a robber. I would press upon you all the plain question, Is this fatal slothfulness characteristic of me? It may co-exist with, and indeed is often the consequence of vehement energy and continuous work to secure wealth, or wisdom, or material good; and the contrast between a man who is all eagerness in regard to the things that don’t matter, and all carelessness in regard to the things that do, is the tragedy of life amongst us. My friend! if your garden has been suffered by you to be overgrown with weeds, be sure of this, that one day you will be awakened from the slumber that you would fain continue, and will find yourself in a life where your ‘poverty’ will come as a robber and your want of all which there is counted treasure ‘as an armed man.’

One word more. Christ’s parable of the sower may be brought into relationship with this parable. He sows the true seed in our hearts, but when sown, it, too, has to be cared for and tended. If it is sown in the sluggard’s garden, it will bring forth few ears, and the tares will choke the wheat.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

24:30-34 Saying 5: Laziness and love for sleep lead to poverty (see 10:4-5, 26; 12:11; 13:4; 15:19; 18:9; 19:15, 24; 20:4, 13).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Here is, 1. The view which Solomon took of the field and vineyard of the slothful man. He did not go on purpose to see it, but, as he passed by, observing the fruitfulness of the ground, as it is very proper for travellers to do, and his subjects' management of their land, as it is very proper for magistrates to do, he cast his eye upon a field and a vineyard unlike all the rest; for, though the soil was good, yet there was nothing growing in them but thorns and nettles, not here and there one, but they were all overrun with weeds; and, if there had been any fruit, it would have been eaten up by the beasts, for there was no fence: The stone-wall was broken down See the effects of that curse upon the ground (Gen 3:18), "Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee, and nothing else unless thou take pains with it." See what a blessing to the world the husbandman's calling is, and what a wilderness this earth, even Canaan itself, would be without it. The king himself is served of the field, but he would be ill served if God did not teach the husbandman discretion and diligence to clear the ground, plant it, sow it, and fence it. See what a great difference there is between some and others in the management even of their worldly affairs, and how little some consult their reputation, not caring though they proclaim their slothfulness, in the manifest effects of it, to all that pass by, shamed by their neighbour's diligence. 2. The reflections which he made upon it. He paused a little and considered it, looked again upon it, and received instruction. He did not break out into any passionate censures of the owner, did not call him any ill names, but he endeavoured himself to get good by the observation and to be quickened by it to diligence. Note, Those that are to give instruction to others must receive instruction themselves, and instruction may be received, not only from what we read and hear, but from what we see, not only from what we see of the works of God, but from what we see of the manners of man, not only from men's good manners, but from their evil manners. Plutarch relates a saying of Cato Major, "That wise men profit more by fools than fools by wise men; for wise men will avoid the faults of fools, but fools will not imitate the virtues of wise men." Solomon reckoned that he received instruction by this sight, though it did not suggest to him any new notion or lesson, but only put him in mind of an observation he himself had formerly made, both of the ridiculous folly of the sluggard (who, when he has needful work to do, lies dozing in bed and cries, Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, and still it will be a little more, till he has slept his eyes out, and, instead of being fitted by sleep for business, as wise men are, he is dulled, and stupefied, and made good for nothing) and of certain misery that attends him: his poverty comes as one that travels; it is constantly coming nearer and nearer to him, and will be upon him speedily, and want seizes him as irresistibly as an armed man, a highwayman that will strip him of all he has. Now this is applicable, not only to our worldly business, to show what a scandalous thing slothfulness in that is, and how injurious to the family, but to the affairs of our souls. Note, (1.) Our souls are our fields and vineyards, which we are every one of us to take care of, to dress, and to keep. They are capable of being improved with good husbandry; that may be got out of them which will be fruit abounding to our account. We are charged with them, to occupy them till our Lord come; and a great deal of care and pains it is requisite that we should take about them. (2.) These fields and vineyards are often in a very bad state, not only no fruit brought forth, but all overgrown with thorns and nettles (scratching, stinging, inordinate lusts and passions, pride, covetousness, sensuality, malice, those are the thorns and nettles, the wild grapes, which the unsanctified heart produces), no guard kept against the enemy, but the stone-wall broken down, and all lies in common, all exposed. (3.) Where it is thus it is owing to the sinner's own slothfulness and folly. He is a sluggard, loves sleep, hates labour; and he is void of understanding, understands neither his business nor his interest; he is perfectly besotted. (4.) The issue of it will certainly be the ruin of the soul and all its welfare. It is everlasting want that thus comes upon it as an armed man. We know the place assigned to the wicked and slothful servant.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

A striking picture of the effects of sloth.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 30. I went by the field of the slothful] This is a most instructive parable; is exemplified every day in a variety of forms; and is powerfully descriptive of the state of many a blackslider and trifler in religion. Calmet has an excellent note on this passage. I shall give the substance of it.

Solomon often recommends diligence and economy to his disciples. In those primitive times when agriculture was honourable, no man was respected who neglected to cultivate his grounds, who sunk into poverty, contracted debt, or engaged in ruinous securities. With great propriety, a principal part of wisdom was considered by them as consisting in the knowledge of properly conducting one's domestic affairs, and duly cultivating the inheritances derived from their ancestors. Moses had made a law to prevent the rich from utterly depressing the poor, by obliging them to return their farms to them on the Sabbatic year, and to remit all debts at the year of jubilee.

In the civil state of the Hebrews, we never see those enormous and suddenly raised fortunes, which never subsist but in the ruin of numberless families. One of the principal solicitudes of this legislator was to produce, as far as possible in a monarchical state, an equality of property and condition. The ancient Romans held agriculture in the same estimation, and highly respected those who had applied themselves to it with success. When they spoke in praise of a man, they considered themselves as giving no mean commendation when they called him a good husbandman, an excellent labourer. From such men they formed their most valiant generals and intrepid soldiers. CATO De Re Rustica, cap. 1. The property which is acquired by these means is most innocent, most solid, and exposes its possessor less to envy than property acquired in any other way. See CICERO De Officiis, lib. 1. In Britain the merchant is all in all; and yet the waves of the sea are not more uncertain, nor more tumultuous, than the property acquired in this way, or than the agitated life of the speculative merchant.

But let us look more particularly into this very instructive parable:-

I. The owner is described.

1. He was איש עצל ish atsel, the loitering, sluggish, slothful man.

2. He was אדם חסר לב adam chasar leb, a man that wanted heart; destitute of courage, alacrity, and decision of mind.

II. His circumstances. This man had,

1st, שדה sadeh, a sowed field, arable ground. This was the character of his estate. It was meadow and corn land.

2. He had כרם kerem, a vineyard, what we would call perhaps garden and orchard, where he might employ his skill to great advantage in raising various kinds of fruits and culinary herbs for the support of his family.

III. The state of this heritage:

1. "It was grown over with thorns." It had been long neglected, so that even brambles were permitted to grow in the fields:

2. "Nettles had covered the face thereof." It was not weeded, and all kinds of rubbish had been suffered to multiply:

3. "The stone wall was broken down." This belonged to the vineyard: it was neither pruned nor digged; and the fence, for want of timely repairs, had all fallen into ruins, Pr 24:31.

IV. The effect all this had on the attentive observer.

1. I saw it, אחזה אנכי echezeh anochi, I fixed my attention on it. I found it was no mere report. It is a fact. I myself was an eyewitness of it.

2. I considered it well, אשית לבי ashith libbi, I put my heart on it. All my feelings were interested.

3. I looked upon it, רעיתי raithi, I took an intellectual view of it. And

4. Thus I received instruction, לקחתי מוסר lakachti musar, I received a very important lesson from it: but the owner paid no attention to it. He alone was uninstructed; for he "slumbered, slept, and kept his hands in his bosom." Pr 24:33. "Hugged himself in his sloth and carelessness."

V. The consequences of this conduct.

1. Poverty described as coming like a traveller, making sure steps every hour coming nearer and nearer to the door.

2. Want, מחסר machsor, total destitution; want of all the necessaries, conveniences, and comforts of life; and this is described as coming like an armed man כאיש מגן keish magen, as a man with a shield, who comes to destroy this unprofitable servant: or it may refer to a man coming with what we call an execution into the house, armed with the law, to take even his bed from the slumberer.

From this literal solution any minister of God may make a profitable discourse.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(30) I went by the field of the slothful . . .—The parable of the vineyard let out to husbandmen for them to render the fruits in due season (Mat_21:33), and of the thorns which choked the word (ibid., Pro_13:7), suggest a spiritual meaning for this passage. It warns us not to allow the weeds of evil habits to spring up in the garden of the soul through sloth, nor to suffer God’s protecting care (the wall) to be withdrawn from us because we have not sought it constantly in prayer.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

30–34. The Sluggard’s Vineyard. Comp. Pro_6:6-11, and notes.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Then I saw, and considered it well,.... Or, "when I saw, I considered it well"; or "set my heart it" (z); when he saw as he passed along the field and the vineyard, he, considered who was the owner and proprietor of them; what a sluggish and foolish man he was, and what a ruinous condition his field and vineyard were in.

I looked upon it, and received instruction; looked at it again, and took a thorough view of it, and learned something from it; so great and wise a man as Solomon received instruction from the field and vineyard of the slothful and foolish man; learned to be wiser, and to be more diligent in cultivating his own field, and dressing his own vineyard: so from the view and consideration of the slothfulness and folly of unregenerate man, and of the state and condition of his soul, many lessons of instruction may be learned; as that there is no free will and wisdom in men with respect to that which is good; the ruinous state and condition of men, as being all overspread with sin and corruption, in all the powers and faculties of their souls; and that there is nothing in them agreeable to God, but all the reverse; also the necessity of divine grace to put them into a good state, and make them fruitful; moreover, the distinguishing grace of God, which makes others to differ from them; and likewise it is teaching and instructive to good men to use more diligence themselves in things relating to their spiritual good, and to the glory of God.

(z) "quum ergo contemplatus essem, adjunxi animum meum", Mercerus; "cum intuerer, apposui cor meum", Gejerus; "cum igitur viderem ego, adponebam cor meum", Michaelis.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The chapter ends with an apologue, which may be taken as a parable of something yet deeper. The field and the vineyard are more than the man’s earthly possessions. His neglect brings barrenness or desolation to the garden of the soul. The “thorns” are evil habits that choke the good seed, and the “nettles” are those that are actually hurtful and offensive to others. The “wall” is the defense which laws and rules give to the inward life, and which the sluggard learns to disregard, and the “poverty” is the loss of the true riches of the soul, tranquility, and peace, and righteousness.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Man. Those who neglected their land were despised. (Calmet) --- The ancient Romans esteemed agriculture as a most laudible and profitable employment. (Cato, Rust. i.; Cicero, Off. i.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

30-34. This is a most instructive parable, and needs little explication, though much might be said in amplification. A few notes must suffice.

I went by — Not casually and carelessly, but as a diligent observer.

All grown over — The “thorns” in the vineyard and the “nettles” in the field had crowded out the grain which the one should have produced, and the fruit which ought to have adorned the other, and both which should have enriched their owner. The language is very forcible. Then I gazed; I considered, or set my heart; I saw, I received admonition. His solemn premonition to the sluggard follows. Comp. Pro_6:9. As one that travelleth — Probably a highwayman.

An armed man — A man of the shield — possibly alluding to the king’s executioners. These last two verses are the same as Pro_6:10-11, where see notes.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 30-34. A mashal ode concerning the sluggard. (for similar odes, comp. Pro 7:21-23Jo Pro_5:3-5 Psa_37:35, etc.; Isa_5:1-6)

The field...the vineyard; the two chief objects of the farmer"s care, which need constant labour if they are to prove productive. Moralizing on this passage, St. Gregory ("Moral.," 20:54) says, "To pass by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding, is to look into the life of any careless liver, and to take a view of his deeds.

Vers. 30-34. The field of the slothful.

Nothing is more characteristic of the Book of Proverbs than its scorn of slothfulness and its strenuous inculcation of industry. To doubt these subjects were especially important in view of the perennial indolence of Orientals. But slothfulness is not unknown in the West, and in the fierce competition of modern life a smaller indulgence in idleness will bring sure disasters. Men often blame their circumstances, the injustice of fate, etc., when they should accuse their own lack of energy. The difference between the successful and those who fail to attain anything in life is more often than not just that between hard work and self-indulgent, easy living.

Moreover, many men who are diligent in business are most slothful in spiritual matters. Hence applications of the parable in the present day.

I THE STATE OF THE FIELD.

1. This is visible to the casual wayfarer. The writer simply "went by" it; yet he took in enough at a glance to understand its condition. A man"s character is impressed upon his work. A slovenly man will have a slovenly hand. The neglected field and the ill-kept vineyard reveal the idle and foolish nature of their owner.

2. The field is seen to be in a miserable condition.

(1) It is overgrown with thorns and nettles. It is not left empty if it is untilled. Weeds grow on the neglected land. If we fail to do our duty, positive mischief will follow. If we neglect the field of the world, briars of ignorance, folly, and sin will spring up; if we fail to train the vineyard of our own family, nettles of evil will appear in the minds of our children, to sting us for our indolence. Thus was it with Eli, who failed to rebuke his sons. If we do not cultivate the gardens of our own souls, rank weeds of sin will certainly grow up there and bear their poisonous fruits.

(2) Its defences are broken down. The indolent man lets his walls fall into dilapidation. Thus his property lies open to the robber and the destroyer. The wild boar from the wood will root up his vine. If we are not watchful and careful, evil will come in from without and spoil our work, our home, our souls. It needs care to guard against aggression.

II THE CONDUCT OF THE OWNER.

1. It is slothful.

(1) His evil is negative. He commits no offence. Yet he is ruined. We may be undone by simple omission without any transgression.

(2) His evil is in delaying to do his duty. He does not mean to forego it. He only postpones fulfilment. Yet he is ruined and disgraced. We owe duties to time. We do wrong by not accomplishing our work promptly, though we intend to accomplish it ultimately. We have not unlimited time before us. Today"s neglected task cannot be performed tomorrow without hindering tomorrow"s work. The foolish virgins failed by being too late.

2. It is self-indulgent. The sluggard enjoys his sleep. Selfishness is the root of idleness. But this, in turn, is stupefying. One does not note how the fresh morning glides away while he lies with his eyes closed in sinful sleep. So also the slumber of the soul that neglects the call to its highest duty is a selfish sleep.

3. It is foolish. The sleep is a poor compensation for poverty and shame.

III THE CERTAIN CONSEQUENCES.

1. Ruin follows. Poverty comes on the slothful man of business as a natural punishment. Poverty of soul, emptiness, fruitlessness, and finally death follow spiritual sloth.

2. This may be unsuspected. "Like a highwayman.

3. It will be irresistible. The want will come "as an armed man.

CONCLUSION. Sloth is peculiarly liable to creep into one"s habits without being noticed, Therefore the need of Ver. 32.

Vers. 30-34. The sluggard"s vineyard: a parable of sloth.

I A PICTURE OF INDOLENCE. (Vers. 30, 31) The vineyard in the East corresponds to the garden, orchard, or small farm in the West. In the parable it is overgrown with nettles and thorns. The stone fence is crumbling for want of repair. We may contrast the picture in Isa_5:1, sqq., of what a vineyard ought to be. The way in which God tilled the chosen people is the way in which he would have each of us attend to the garden of the soul.

II THE SIGHT CARRIES A LESSON AND A WARNING. (Vers. 32-34) Let us attend to the parables of Nature. The eye is the great critical organ, and we never want lessons if we use it. The lesson here is the effect has a cause the wildness of Nature betrays the sin of man. Neglect marks itself on her truthful face. The sluggard"s soul is revealed in her aspect not less than in the unkempt hair and squalid face of the human being. Here is the "vile sin of self-neglect," which involves all other neglect, clearly mirrored. In such spectacles and in the gloomier ones of malarious swamps, once smiling fields, God writes his judgment on the broad earth"s face against the crime of sloth. The warning is against poverty and want, which stride on with noiseless footsteps, rushing in at last with sudden surprise upon dreaming self-indulgence, like an armed robber. Sudden seeming woes are long preparing, and no curse "causeless comes.

III THE MORAL APPLICATION.

1. The analogy of Nature and the human spirit. Both are of God. Both contain principles of life, beauty, and use. Both need cultivation in order to their perfection. In both sloth and neglect are punished by loss and ruin.

2. The personal moral duty. To "awake from sleep," to "stir up the gift within us," to "work out our salvation," to be good husbandmen, good and faithful servants in this garden of the Lord the soul. If not faithful here, how can it be expected that we shall be faithful in spheres more remote? J.

Vers. 30-34. The neglected garden.

The whole scene is before us. The sluggard is asleep while everything is going wrong; instead of the flower is the thorn; the ground is coloured with the green weeds; the wall is breaking down; where should be beauty is unsightliness; where should be fruitfulness is barrenness or wilderness; ruin is written, on everything, everywhere. So is it with the farmer, with the tradesman, with the merchant or manufacturer, of the sluggard order. Consider it well. Negligence, dilatoriness, half-heartedness, in any department means decay, breakdown, ruin. Poverty is on its way, and will certainly be knocking at the door; want will present itself with a force that cannot be resisted.

1. We have all of us a garden, an estate of our own, Which God has given us to cultivate that which is of more value than many thousands of acres of fertile soil, that which no riches can buyour own true self, our own human spirit. God has solemnly charged us to cultivate that, to weed it of error and prejudice, of folly and of passion; to plant truth there, his own living, abiding truth; to plant righteousness there, purity of heart, integrity of soul; to plant love there, such as fills his own gracious Spirit; to build there walls of wise, strong, protecting habits, which will fence and guard the soul from intruding enemies.

2. There are all too many who treat this garden, this estate, with careless negligence; they throw their energy and force into everything else business, love, politics, art, pleasure, society; but themselves, their own spirit, their own character, they leave to fare as best it may without care and without culture.

3. Very sad indeed are the results of this foolish and guilty negligence. This picture of the sluggard"s garden will tell us what they are.

I UNSIGHTLINESS. What a dreary picture weeds, thistles, thorns, a broken wall! The eye turns from it with repugnance. And the neglected garden of the soul? Instead of the beautiful flowers of Christian reverence and love, and the lair fruits of holiness and zeal, and the strong walls of a noble character, there are seen by God and man the unsightly weeds of transgression, of selfishness, of untruthfulness perhaps the thorns of intemperance and impurity and profanity.

II WASTE. African travellers tell us that passing over uncultivated regions they have to make their way through all kinds of rank growth, grass, or shrub which is high, strong, or thorny, covering many miles at a stretch. What waste is there! What corn, what fruit, would not that land produce? Alas! for the pitiful waste of an uncultured human soul! What beauties might not be seen there, what fruits might not be grown there, what graces and virtues might not be produced there, if only the truth of Christ were received into the mind and welcomed to the heart!

III MISCHIEF. These weeds will not be confined to the sluggard"s garden; their seeds will be carried by the winds into his neighbour"s, and do mischief enough them. A neglected soul is a mischief-working soul. It cannot confine its influence to itself or its own life. Those influences cross the wall and get into the neighbour"s ground. And the seeds of sin are hurtful, poisonous things, spreading error, falsehood, delusion, into the minds of men. If we are not blessing our neighbours by the lives we live, we are an injury and an evil to them.

IV RUIN. The man who neglects his estate is really, steadily, ruining himself. He may not see it until it is too late. Poverty has been travelling toward him, but only at the last bend of the road does it come in sight. Want suddenly appears "as an armed man," strong, irresistible; there is no way of escape; bankruptcy is before him. The soul that is neglected is being ruined; day by day it is being enfeebled, enslaved, deteriorated; the good that was there is lessening and disappearing; the hard crust of selfishness and worldliness is thickening. The soul is being lost; it is perishing. "I considered it well my heart up in it" (marginal reading) This is, indeed, a thing to be well considered, to "set the heart upon," for the issues of it are those of life or death. There is time to restore it; but a little more negligence, and the hour of "ruin" will have struck. C.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A Mashal ode of the slothful, in the form of a record of experiences, concludes this second supplement (vid., vol. i. p. 17):

30 The field of a slothful man I came past,

And the vineyard of a man devoid of understanding.

31 And, lo! it was wholly filled up with thorns;

Its face was covered with nettles;

And its wall of stones was broken down.

32 But I looked and directed my attention to it;

I saw it, and took instruction from it:

33 "A little sleep, a little slumber,

A little folding of the hands to rest.

34 Then cometh thy poverty apace,

And thy want as an armed man."

The line 29b with לאישׁ is followed by one with אישׁ. The form of the narrative in which this warning against drowsy slothfulness is clothed, is like Psa 37:35. The distinguishing of different classes of men by אישׁ and אדם (cf. Pro 24:20) is common in proverbial poetry. עברתּי, at the close of the first parallel member, retains its Pathach unchanged. The description: and, lo! (הנּהו, with Pazer, after Thorath Emeth, p. 34, Anm. 2) it was... refers to the vineyard, for נדר אבניו (its stone wall, like Isa 2:20, "its idols of silver") is, like Num 22:24; Isa 5:5, the fencing in of the vineyard. עלה כלּו, totus excreverat (in carduos), refers to this as subject, cf. in Ausonius: apex vitibus assurgit; the Heb. construction is as Isa 5:6; Isa 34:13; Gesen. 133, 1, Anm. 2. The sing. קמּשׁון of קמּשׁונים does not occur; perhaps it means properly the weed which one tears up to cast it aside, for (Arab.) kumâsh is matter dug out of the ground.

(Note: This is particularly the name of what lies round about on the ground in the Bedouin tents, and which one takes up from thence (from ḳamesh, cogn. קבץ קמץ, ramasser, cf. the journal המגיד, 1871, p. 287b); in modern Arab., linen and matter of all kinds; vid., Bocthor, under linge and toffe.)

The ancients interpret it by urticae; and חרוּל, plur. חרלּים (as from חרל), R. חר, to burn, appears, indeed, to be the name of the nettle; the botanical name (Arab.) khullar (beans, pease, at least a leguminous plant) is from its sound not Arab., and thus lies remote.

(Note: Perhaps ὄλυρα, vid., Lagarde's Gesamm. Abhandl. p. 59.)

The Pual כּסּוּ sounds like Psa 80:11 (cf. כּלּוּ, Psa 72:20); the position of the words is as this passage of the Psalm; the Syr., Targ., Jerome, and the Venet. render the construction actively, as if the word were כּסּוּ.

In Pro 24:32, Hitzig proposes to read ואחזה: and I stopped (stood still); but אחז is trans., not only at Ecc 7:9, but also at Ecc 2:15 : to hold anything fast; not: to hold oneself still. And for what purpose the change? A contemplating and looking at a thing, with which the turning and standing near is here connected, manifestly includes a standing still; ראיתי, after ואחזה, is, as commonly after הביט (e.g., Job 35:5, cf. Isa 42:18), the expression of a lingering looking at an object after the attention has been directed to it. In modern impressions, ואחזה אנכי are incorrectly accentuated; the old editions have rightly ואחזה with Reba; for not אנכי 'וא, but אנכי אשׁית are connected. In Pro 8:17, this prominence of the personal pronoun serves for the expression of reciprocity; elsewhere, as e.g., Gen 21:24; Kg2 6:3, and particularly, frequently in Hosea, this circumstantiality does not make the subject prominent, but the action; here the suitable extension denotes that he rightly makes his comments at leisure (Hitzig). שׁית לב is, as at Pro 22:17, the turning of attention and reflection; elsewhere לקח מוּסר, to receive a moral, Pro 8:10, Jer 7:28, is here equivalent to, to abstract, deduce one from a fact, to take to oneself a lesson from it. In Pro 24:33 and Pro 24:34 there is a repetition of Pro 6:9-10. Thus, as Pro 24:33 expresses, the sluggard speaks to whom the neglected piece of ground belongs, and Pro 24:34 places before him the result. Instead of כמהלּך of the original passage [Pro 6:9-10], here מתהלך, of the coming of poverty like an avenging Nemesis; and instead of וּמחסרך, here וּמחסריך (the Cod. Jaman. has it without the י), which might be the plene written pausal form of the sing. (vid., at Pro 6:3, cf. Pro 6:11), but is more surely regarded as the plur.: thy deficits, or wants; for to thee at one time this, and at another time that, and finally all things will be wanting. Regarding the variants ראשׁך and רישׁך (with א in the original passage, here in the borrowed passage with י), vid., at Pro 10:4. כּאישׁ מגן is translated in the lxx by ὥσπερ ἀγαθὸς δρομεύς (vid., at Pro 6:11); the Syr. and Targ. make from it a גּברא טבלרא, tabellarius, a letter-carrier, coming with the speed of a courier.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Everything around us reads an useful lesson to an observant eye. Every particle of creation may be taxed to furnish its quota to our store of knowledge. We can extract good even from evil, and "gather grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles." Solomon describes with his usual vigor of thought and strength of coloring, and affecting sight, that had passed before his eyes — the field and vineyard of the slothful, grown over with thorns and nettles, and the wall utterly broken down. Instead of turning away, he considered it well, and received instruction. In the solemn contemplation of this picture of desolation, he could not but turn his thoughts to the wretched proprietor. He fancied himself in his house, beholding the sottish being stretched on his bed, and crying out under the noonday sun — Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. Stimulated by this effusion of the torpid animal, the response almost unconsciously forced itself — So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.

And yet by some strange delusion, the slothful conceives himself to be wise. (Pro 26:16 .) But how manifestly is he void of understanding; without heart to improve his many advantages! He might enrich himself by his field and vineyard. But he has never cultivated or weeded it. The stone wall, raised by some more industrious hand, is broken down; and he is too indolent to repair it. His vineyard is therefore left a prey to every invader; while he lives as a mere animal, in sensual indulgence, bringing himself gradually, but irresistibly, to poverty.†1 Not that he means to come to beggary. He only wants yet a little sleep, a little slumber more — and then he will bestir himself. But this little insensibly increases. Every hour’s indulgence strengthens the habit, and chains the victim in hopeless bondage. His efforts for exertion are only the struggles of the paralytic, without energy or effectiveness. If his dependence is upon his own industry, manual or mental, sloth must hasten on his ruin. In a higher station, it deprives him of the means of using his influence aright, or of employing his talents to any valuable purpose. There is indeed no higher blessing than usefulness; no more affecting lamentation than that of the worn-out laborer, who is conscious that his usefulness is ended. But the slothful is satisfied, that his usefulness should never begin. He is content with a life of utter uselessness. He willfully gives himself up to it; as if indolence was his supreme good, and every kind of exercise the object of his shrinking dread. Such a life can never approve itself to conscience, and assuredly will never escape the condemnation of God. (See Mat 25:26-36 .) It is poverty to himself. He becomes his own enemy. The springs of solid happiness are impoverished, and the true end of life frittered away.

But let us look at the spiritual sluggard. If a neglected field is a melancholy sight, what is a neglected soul! a soul which, instead of being cultivated with the seeds of grace, is left to its own barrenness; overgrown with the native produce of thorns and nettles. (Gen 3:18 .) Time, talents, opportunities have been vouchsafed; perhaps the blessing of a godly education added, every encouragement for hopeful promise. But if diligence is needed; if the man must "labor and strive,"†2 then his field must be left, at least for the present. He must have a little more sleep first.†3 And thus he sleeps on, and shuts both eyes and ears against every disturbance of his fatal slumber. Nothing is done or attempted for God, for his own soul, or for his fellow-creatures. His vineyard is left open. All his good purposes are the stone wall broken down. Satan "goes out, and returns at his will."†4 All is devastation and ruin.

Christian! is there no danger of this evil creeping into our religion? No habit is so ruinous. It enervates, and at length stops, the voice of prayer. It hinders the active energy of meditation. It weakens the influence of watchfulness. The way to heaven is steep, rough, hard to climb, immeasurably long, forbidding in its present exercise and doubtful in its end, full of toil and discouragement, devoid of beaming hope and sunshine. This false apprehension checks every step of progress; so that "the soul" — instead of being "a well-watered garden" (Jer 31:12 ), sending forth refreshing fragrance and grateful fruits — relapses into its former wilderness state; laid open to every temptation; and too often ultimately a prey to sensual appetites.†5

Let our Father’s voice be instantly heard — "Son, go work today in thy vineyard." (Mat 21:28 .) Dost thou not see, that it is overgrown with thorns? Look forward, not backward. Complain not, but decide. Pray not only, but strive. Always connect privilege with practice. Prove the principles of moral character, as well as spiritual experience. Aim at every active exercise, that may strengthen religious habits. ’Surely, if we look to stand in the faith of the sons of God, we must hourly, continually, be providing, and setting ourselves to strive.’ It was not the meaning of our Lord and Savior in saying — "Father, keep them in thy name" — that we should be careless to keep ourselves. ’To our own safety, our sedulity is required.’†6

Footnotes:

†1 Pro 6:10-11. The Roman Satirist gives a lively description of the stirring of the slothful man’s excitement of lust —

’Mane, piger, stertis? Surge, inquit avaritia: eja

Surge: negas? Instat, surge, inquit. Non queo: surge,’ &c.

Persius, Sat. 5. 132, 133.

†2 Joh 6:27. Luk 13:24 .

†3 See Augustine’s instructive reference to his own case. — Confess. lib. viii. c. 5.

†4 Mat 12:45. 2Ti 2:26 .

†5 Pro 23:21. 2Sa 11:2 . Eze 16:49 .

†6 Hooker ’On the certainty and perpetuity of Faith in God’s Elect.’

Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

v. 30. I went by the field of the slothful, where he could well observe the effect of sloth, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding, one too lazy to work because he lacked in wisdom;

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Thorns

useless plants with sharp spines

nettles

plants that are covered with stinging leaves and hairs

was broken down

"had fallen down"

translationWords

vineyard

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

a lazy man who does not review the memorization of his studies.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.