Here we have -

I. A FEATURE OF ANCIENT LIFE. The warnings against incurring this responsibility are very frequent in this book (Proverbs 11:15; Proverbs 17:18; Proverbs 20:16; Proverbs 22:26). For the bail was treated like the insolvent debtor (2 Kings 4:1; Matthew 18:25). He was subject to distraint or to be sold into slavery. Ben-Sira (29, 18, seq.) says, "Suretyship hath destroyed many that were doing well, and swallowed them up as a wave of the sea. It hath turned mighty men out of their homes, and they wandered among foreign peoples." The surety struck his band into that of the debtor, as a sign that he would answer for him. This would be accompanied by a verbal declaration, and hence the man had bound and confined himself - "snared himself by the words of his mouth." The rigidity of ancient custom in this particular told with terrible severity against thoughtless incurrers of responsibility, no matter how kind the motive. Hence -

II. THE URGENT NEED OF PRUDENCE. Ver. 3: "Since thou hast come into the hand [power] of thy neighbour, stamp with thy foot, and storm thy neighbour;" i.e. be urgent and insistent with the careless debtor for whom thou hast pledged thyself, press upon him the fulfilment of his responsibilities before it be too late. Exercise a sleepless vigilance (ver. 4, "Tear thyself free like a gazelle from its haunt, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler").

III. MODERN REFLECTIONS AND LESSORS.

1. Let us be thankful that the severity of the ancient laws and customs concerning debt and suretyship has been mitigated. The history of the changes of law is one of the best evidences of Christianity, and proof that prior conceptions of God advance side by side with gentler conceptions of social relations and duties.

2. Prudence is a constant necessity, and its cultivation a virtue, though not the highest. We must learn to adjust the claims of prudence and of neighbourly love.

3. Independence is not only a "glorious privilege," but the firm foundation for the best life enjoyment and life work. These are golden words from Ben-Sira, valid for all time: "Take heed to thyself, lest thou fail. The elements of life are water, bread, and a coat to one's back, and a dwelling to hide unseemliness. Better the poor man's life in his hut than faring luxuriously in others' houses... It is an ill life from house to house, and not to be able to open your mouth where you are sojourning." To do our own work or God's work well, we should aim at detachment, disembarrassment, freedom of spirit. - J.

The law of the acquisition of knowledge is that the mind knows the unknown through the known. It gets at the distant through the near, and at the near through the nearer. It ascends to the Divine through the human, and through the material and the temporal mounts up to the spiritual and eternal. As a consequence, the teaching of the Scriptures in the feature alluded to is more specific and intelligible to such a creature as man than it could be in any other mode. The words of the text directly refer to the sin of adultery. The wise man directs youth to the best defence against every tendency to this evil. That defence he finds in the remembrance of, attention to, and conformity with, the family training he received in the morning of life. Then, in a manner remarkably elegant, he places before him the advantages he would reap by assuming towards the law the attitude prescribed. The law is here personified as a wise counsellor, as a careful guardian, and as an interesting companion. That law will preserve against the particular dangers to which age and circumstances make the young peculiarly liable. It is of prime importance to be kept from the " strange woman." In the text the wise man returns again to the necessity of directly resisting the evil in the occasion of it, in the temptation to it, and that from the consideration of the impossibility of playing with the enticement without falling into the sin.

I. EVERY TEMPTATION PRESENTED TO MAN ADDRESSES ITSELF TO A NATURE THAT IS ALREADY CORRUPT, AND THEREFORE LIABLE TO TAKE TO IT. It appears from the history of mankind that there is force enough in temptation, by keeping the mind in fellowship with it, to influence even holy creatures so as to make them fall. So it happened with our first parents in Eden. If there was such force in temptation when there was nothing but holiness in the mind, what must be its power to a creature that is already depraved? Wherever you find a man you find a sinner. The bias of our nature is towards sin, the original propensity of our minds is in the direction of evil. Here lies the danger of playing with temptation. There is some. thing in thee that is advantageous to it. The whole moral nature of man is impaired. The moral deterioration of mankind is such as to expose them to various assaults of temptation, and if any one boldly frequents infectious places, dallying with and fondling the disease, it is impossible for him, possessing the nature he does, to escape the contagion.

II. MAN, IN PLAYING WITH THE TEMPTATION, PUTS HIMSELF DIRECTLY IN THE WAY THAT LEADS NATURALLY TO SIN. Every sin has certain enticements peculiar to itself. The great moral defect of thousands is that they do not recognise the sin in the enticement thereto. Show how, by playing with temptation, a man may develop into a thief, a gambler, or a drunkard. Scripture not only forbids the sin itself, but also all the occasions to it, and the first motions of the heart towards it. Do you desire not to fall into any sin, then shut your ears that you hear not the voice of the temptation; turn your eyes away from looking at it; bind yourself to something strong enough to keep you from falling into its snare. When a man plays with the temptation he is in the middle of the road which leads into the sin.

III. PLAYING WITH TEMPTATION TO ANY EVIL SHOWS SOME DEGREE OF BIAS IN THE NATURE TO THAT PARTICULAR EVIL. It is in the communion of the mind with the temptation that power resides, and if there be in the mind a sufficient amount of virtue — of virtue the direct opposite of the sin to which the temptation prompts — to keep a man on his guard from playing with it, he is perfectly safe from any injury that may be inflicted by it. In truth, when it is so the temptation is to him no longer a temptation. When a man hates the sin with perfect hatred the temptation to it is hateful to him, and he avoids not only the sin itself, but all occasions to it and all things that might lead thereto. There is in each one of us separately some predisposition to some particular sin, just as in some bodily constitutions there is a predisposition to certain fevers. There may be something in a man's organism making him incline beforehand to some special sin, and thus placing him under an obligation to exercise special vigilance against that sin. Natural predispositions these may be called; but there are others, the result of habit only, equally powerful in their influence and equally dangerous if any advantage be given them to show themselves. And sometimes the natural predispositions are strengthened by habit. When a man plays with any temptation it is proof of some bias toward the sin which is the direct object of the temptation. The playing with the temptation is nothing else than the heart reaching out after the sin, the lust conceiving in the mind.

IV. PLAYING WITH TEMPTATION ONLY BRINGS MAN INTO CONTACT WITH SIN ON ITS AGREEABLE SIDE, AND THUS GIVES IT AN ADVANTAGE TO MAKE AN IMPRESSION FAVOURABLE TO ITSELF ON THE MIND. It must be confessed that sin has its pleasure. It means the immediate satisfaction of the depraved propensities of the nature. Only the pleasure of sin is in the temptation. There you see the impossibility for any one to dally with it without falling a prey to it.

V. MAN, THROUGH PLATING WITH TEMPTATION, WEAKENS HIS MORAL RESISTANCE TO THE SIN, AND GRADUALLY GETS SO WEAK THAT HE CANNOT RESIST IT. When a man entertains evil suggestion his moral force begins to be undermined. One depraved thought invites another. Playing with temptation eats away the moral energy. The conscience at last gets so depraved that it permits unforbidden what it once condemned, and so step by step, almost unwittingly to himself, the man finds himself utterly powerless to resist temptation. And that is not all, but playing with the temptation keeps a man from the only means through which he might acquire strength to overcome the sin.

VI. MAN, BY PLAYING WITH TEMPTATION, AT LAST TEMPTS THE SPIRIT OF GOD TO WITHDRAW HIS PROTECTION FROM HIM, AND TO LEAVE HIM TO HIMSELF AND A PREY TO HIS LUST. Scriptures teach that the Spirit of the Lord exerts His influence in different ways to keep one from sin. Sometimes He overrules external circumstances. At other times He influences the mind by means of certain reflections, so that the temptation fails in its effect upon him. When a man continues to play with temptation, permitting his heart always to run in the channel of his lust, beginning to give way to his first impulses and desires, he vexes and grieves God's Spirit and gradually offends Him so much that He withdraws from him, withholds His protection and allows the temptation in all its force to assault him at a time when lust is strong and the external opportunity perfectly advantageous. And the result is he falls a prey to the temptation.

(Owen Thomas, D. D.)