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Selected Verse: Proverbs 5:21 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Pr 5:21 |
King James |
For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
| The reason, God's eye is on you, |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
One more warning. The sin is not against man, nor dependent on man's detection only. The secret sin is open before the eyes of Yahweh. In the balance of His righteous judgment are weighed all human acts.
Pondereth - Note the recurrence of the word used of the harlot herself (see Pro 1:6 note): she ponders not, God does. |
| Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
That the intercourse of the sexes out of the married relationship is the commencement of the ruin of a fool is now proved.
21 For the ways of every one are before the eyes of Jahve,
And all his paths He marketh out.
22 His own sins lay hold of him, the evil-doer,
And in the bands of his sins is he held fast.
23 He dies for the want of correction,
And in the fulness of his folly he staggers to ruin.
It is unnecessary to interpret נכח as an adverbial accusative: straight before Jahve's eyes; it may be the nominative of the predicate; the ways of man (for אישׁ is here an individual, whether man or woman) are an object (properly, fixing) of the eyes of Jahve. With this the thought would suitably connect itself: et onmes orbitas ejus ad amussim examinat; but פּלּס, as the denom. of פּלס, Psa 58:3, is not connected with all the places where the verb is united with the obj. of the way, and Psa 78:50 shows that it has there the meaning to break though, to open a way (from פל, to split, cf. Talmudic מפלּשׁ, opened, accessible, from פלשׁ, Syriac pelaa, perfodere, fodiendo viam, aditum sibi aperire). The opening of the way is here not, as at Isa 26:7, conceived of as the setting aside of the hindrances in the way of him who walks, but generally as making walking in the way possible: man can take no step in any direction without God; and that not only does not exempt him from moral responsibility, but the consciousness of this is rather for the first time rightly quickened by the consciousness of being encompassed on every side by the knowledge and the power of God. The dissuasion of Pro 5:20 is thus in Pro 5:21 grounded in the fact, that man at every stage and step of his journey is observed and encompassed by God: it is impossible for him to escape from the knowledge of God or from dependence on Him. Thus opening all the paths of man, He has also appointed to the way of sin the punishment with which it corrects itself: "his sins lay hold of him, the evil-doer." The suffix יו does not refer to אישׁ of Pro 5:21, where every one without exception and without distinction is meant, but it relates to the obj. following, the evil-doer, namely, as the explanatory permutative annexed to the "him" according to the scheme, Exo 2:6; the permutative is distinguished from the apposition by this, that the latter is a forethought explanation which heightens the understanding of the subject, while the former is an explanation afterwards brought in which guards against a misunderstanding. The same construction, Pro 14:13, belonging to the syntaxis ornata in the old Hebrew, has become common in the Aramaic and in the modern Hebrew. Instead of ילכּדוּהוּ (Pro 5:22), the poet uses poetically ילכּדנו; the interposed נ may belong to the emphatic ground-form ילכּדוּן, but is epenthetic if one compares forms such as קבנו (R. קב), Num 23:13 (cf. p. 73). The חמּאתו governed by חבלי, laquei (חבלי, tormina), is either gen. exeg.: bands which consist in his sin, or gen. subj.: bands which his sin unites, or better, gen. possess.: bands which his sin brings with it. By these bands he will be held fast, and so will die: he (הוּא referring to the person described) will die in insubordination (Symm. δι ̓ ἀπαιδευσίαν), or better, since אין and רב are placed in contrast: in want of correction. With the ישׁגּה (Pro 5:23), repeated purposely from Pro 5:20, there is connected the idea of the overthrow which is certain to overtake the infatuated man. In Pro 5:20 the sense of moral error began already to connect itself with this verb. אוּלת is the right name of unrestrained lust of the flesh. אולת is connected with אוּל, the belly; אול, Arab. âl, to draw together, to condense, to thicken (Isaiah, p. 424). Dummheit (stupidity) and the Old-Norse dumba, darkness, are in their roots related to each other. Also in the Semitic the words for blackness and darkness are derived from roots meaning condensation. אויל is the mind made thick, darkened, and become like crude matter. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
| For the ways of a man - Whether they are public or private, God sees all the steps thou takest in life. |
6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.
20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
13 And Balak said unto him, Come, I pray thee, with me unto another place, from whence thou mayest see them: thou shalt see but the utmost part of them, and shalt not see them all: and curse me them from thence.
22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
13 Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness.
6 And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.
21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.
21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.
20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
7 The way of the just is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just.
50 He made a way to his anger; he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence;
3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.