Proverbs 6:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Chapters 1 to 9 are preparatory for the course in wisdom which begins in chapter 10. We learn from these chapters the attitudes which are essential if ever we are going to benefit from chapter 10 on. If the course is going to do us any good, we have to first pay attention to certain rules and we have been looking at some of those rules. We have noted that it is a book full of parables, rather longish ones at first, soon to become very short ones. Another thing which distinguishes the early chapters is they are all to do with salvation, with finding the Lord, with being delivered from bondage, the snares of the present life, a life without God, from a life without any spiritual satisfaction. Some of the illustrations or parables are repeated in different forms, and Solomon does this because it gives him opportunity to employ arguments, which show us the folly of living without God, and the great disadvantages and indeed the dangers of being a worldling. So he marshals the same general illustrations again and again, employing them in slightly different ways. We have seen that the basis of the early chapters is the instruction of a father to a son, a father who has to train his children in the ways of running the smallholding. We are introduced to the district gang, the tender bride and the adulteress. In this first verse, Solomon gives us a new type of illustration. Although the illustration of the adulteress is still running, there seems to be a small digression: ‘My son, if thou be surety for thy friend.’ Now the most natural thing which you find in some of the older commentators is to assume that the friend here is the adulteress, the picture is being largely continued, and this appears to be the case, though it is not absolutely certain. The word ‘friend’ is an interesting word. It really means no more than associate; it is a kind of neutral word. It mean friend if the context requires, but it is equally possible to understand it of an associate, or a lover even, and Solomon may still have in mind the adulteress. If so, then the idea is this: what has happened is she wants to spend some money. She wants to perhaps make her home even more luxurious, and she wants to borrow the money. She is not quite ready yet to ask you to give her the money, she is more cunning than that. She is seducing you, she is drawing you aside. And so what she plans to do is to borrow a great deal of money, and you are going to act as surety for her. You are going to take responsibility for the debt.