Proverbs 17:3

The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) The fining pot is for silver.—See above on Proverbs 2:4.

The Lord trieth the hearts.—By allowing sorrows and temptations to assail them, in order that they may come out of the trial as pure gold (Revelation 3:18; 1Peter 1:7; 1Corinthians 3:13; Malachi 3:3), purged of earthly infirmities.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:1 These words recommend family love and peace, as needful for the comfort of human life. 2. The wise servant is more deserving, and more likely to appear one of the family, than a profligate son. 3. God tries the heart by affliction. He thus has often shown the sin remaining in the heart of the believer.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Wonderful as is the separation of the pure metal from the dross with which it has mingled, there is something yet more wonderful in the divine discipline which purifies the good that lies hid, like a grain of gold, even in rough and common natures, and frees it from all admixture of evil. Compare Malachi 3:2; 1 Peter 1:7.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. God only knows, as He tries (Ps 12:6; 66:10) the heart.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The hearts of men cannot be searched and known by any human art, but by God only.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold,.... Refiners of silver have their fining pots, in which they purify the silver from the dross; and goldsmiths have their crucibles to melt and purify their gold, by which assays of the worth and value of it may be made;

but the Lord trieth the hearts; there is no vessel, as Gersom observes, in which they can be put and tried by creatures; a man does not know, nor can he thoroughly search and try his own heart, and much less the hearts of others; God only knows and tries them, Jeremiah 17:9; The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions, render it by way of similitude, "as the fining pot is for silver", &c. as silver is refined in the pot, and gold in the furnace, so are the hearts of God's people, and their graces tried and purified by him in the furnace of affliction; the variety of troubles they are exercised with are made useful for the purging away of the dross of sin and corruption, and for the brightening of their graces, 1 Peter 1:7.

Geneva Study Bible

The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. trieth the hearts] q.d. man can try the precious metals, but only God the hearts (Jeremiah 17:9-10). The thought that He tries them to refine them, which is suggested here by the parallelism, is elsewhere expressed clearly. (Psalm 66:10-12; Malachi 3:3-4; 1 Peter 1:7. Comp. Sir 2:5.)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold. The word matsreph, "fining pot," occurs also in Proverbs 27:21. It is not certain what is meant by it. There is no evidence that the Israelites were acquainted with the use of acids in the manipulation of impure or mixed metals; otherwise the "pot" and the "furnace" would represent the two usual modes of reduction; but it is most probable that both allude to the same method of smelting the ore in crucibles, for the purpose of separating the pure metal from the dross. That silver and gold were plentiful in Solomon's time is abundantly evident; indeed, the amount of the precious metals collected by David and his son is almost incredible (see 1 Chronicles 22:14; 1 Chronicles 29:2, etc., from which and similar passages it is inferred that the sums enumerated equalled more than nine hundred millions of pounds sterling). But the Lord trieth the hearts (Proverbs 15:11; Proverbs 24:12). That which fire does for the metals, the Lord does for men's hearts; he purifies them from dross, brings forth the good that is in them, purged from earthly infirmities. God's process is the application of sorrow, sickness, temptation, that, duly meeting these, the soul may emerge from the trial as pure gold, fit for the Master's use (comp. Jeremiah 12:3; Malachi 3:2; 1 Peter 1:7; Revelation 3:18). Proverbs 17:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

3 The fining-pot for silver, and the furnace for gold;

   And a trier of hearts is Jahve.

An emblematical proverb, which means that Jahve is for the heart what the smelting-pot (from צרף, to change, particularly to melt, to refine) is for silver, and what the smelting furnace (כוּר, from כּוּר, R. כר, to round, Exodus 22:20) is for gold, that Jahve is for the heart, viz., a trier (בחן, to grind, to try by grinding, here as at Psalm 7:10) of their nature and their contents, for which, of the proof of metals, is elsewhere (Proverbs 16:2; Proverbs 21:2; Proverbs 24:12) used the word (cf. בּחון, the essay-master, Jeremiah 6:7) תּכן, weigher, or דּורשׁ, searcher (1 Chronicles 28:9). Wherever the subject spoken of is God, the searcher of hearts, the plur. לבּות, once לבבות ecno ,, is used; the form לבבים occurs only in the status conjunctus with the suffix. In Proverbs 27:21 there follow the two figures, with which there is formed a priamel, as at Proverbs 26:3, another tertium comparationis.