Proverbs 24:32

Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

24:30-34. See what a blessing the husbandman's calling is, and what a wilderness this earth would be without it. See what great difference there is in the management even of worldly affairs. Sloth and self-indulgence are the bane of all good. When we see fields overgrown with thorns and thistles, and the fences broken down, we see an emblem of the far more deplorable state of many souls. Every vile affection grows in men's hearts; yet they compose themselves to sleep. Let us show wisdom by doubling our diligence in every good thing.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

32-34. From the folly of the sluggard learn wisdom (Pr 6:10, 11).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I learned wisdom by his folly, and by his gross idleness was provoked to greater care and diligence.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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.

Geneva Study Bible

Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received {k} instruction.

(k) That I might learn by another man's fault.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 32. - Then I saw, and considered it well (Proverbs 22:17). I looked in this sight, and let it sink into my mind. I looked upon it, and received instruction (Proverbs 8:10). I learned a lesson from what I saw. Proverbs 24:32

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

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 Psalm 37:35. The distinguishing of different classes of men by אישׁ and אדם (cf. Proverbs 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 Isaiah 2:20, "its idols of silver") is, like Numbers 22:24; Isaiah 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 Isaiah 5:6; Isaiah 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.)

continued...