Proverbs 20:13 Commentary and Bible Study

The thought is similar to verse 4, and again the Spirit warns us against inactivity, but the reason for sloth here is love of sleep or ease, while in verse 4 it comes from aversion to the discomfort involved in exertion. The two are closely related. Again, Solomon uses this picture of the sluggard in order to teach us spiritual lessons. To see this proverb as giving us no more than a moral lesson on laziness, which is applicable to believers and unbelievers alike, is to fail to see the real significance of this book. Solomon uses illustrations from all over the natural world, but his real goal is always the spiritual state of men and women. The moral or practical lesson in the natural world has some value, but comparatively it is incidental, and we must look for a spiritual lesson in each of his illustrations. Here is a person who cannot rise in the morning because they want just a little more sleep. They know it is time to get up but the urgency of the day’s activity is not enough to stir them from sleep, so they keep their eyes closed in the hope that they will drift off to sleep again. They have already had sufficient sleep to refresh them, but rather than rising and preparing for the day and getting down to work, they turn over and return to sleep and let hours be wasted. In the natural realm, the advice is to open the eyes and get on with the duties of the day. The opening of the eyes of course stands for all else that is involved in the effort of engaging with life. The result will be that there will be bread to eat because the necessary work has been done to plough the land, plant the crop and bring in the harvest. There is much that we cannot do to put food on the table, but God has ordained that no benefit will come without the work that we can do being completed. While man is on earth he must live by the labour of his hand, real or metaphorical.What does this have to do with our spiritual condition? Unbelief is like sleep, for no one finds the blessing of God who does not earnestly desire it, and we know that it is worth making any amount of exertion to obtain it. If we lose all and gain salvation then life has not been a waste. Like a drowning man who lets go of all his possessions so that he can cling onto the life ring, so the believer clings to Christ. The sleeping soul must shake itself free from sleep and force its eyes open, because time is running out and Satan is quite content for us to sleep away our lives and wake up too late to find we are lost.