---
title: "Clarke"
description: "Verse Proverbs 19:1. Better is the poor — The upright poor man is always to be preferred to the rich or self-sufficient fool. Verse Proverbs 19:2. Also, t"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/clarkes-commentary/proverbs/19"
---

Verse [Proverbs 19:1](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/1). ***Better*****is*****the poor*** — The upright poor man is always to be preferred to the rich or *self-sufficient* fool.

Verse [Proverbs 19:2](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/2). ***Also*****, that*****the soul*****be*****without knowledge*****, it is*****not**********good*** — Would it not be plainer, as it is more *literal*, to say, "Also, to be without knowledge, is not good for the soul?" The soul was made for God; and to be without his *knowledge*, to be *unacquainted with him*, is not only *not good*, but the *greatest* *evil* the soul can suffer, for it involves all other evils. The *Chaldee* and *Syriac* have: "He who knows not his own soul, it is not good to him." "Where no discretion is, there the soul is not well." - *Coverdale*.
***And he that hasteth with*****his*****feet sinneth.*** — And this will be the case with him who is not Divinely instructed. A *child* does nothing *cautiously*, because it is uninstructed; a *savage* is also *rash* and *precipitate*, till *experience* instructs him. A man who has not the knowledge of God is incautious, rash, headstrong, and precipitate: and hence he *sinneth*-he is continually *missing the* *mark*, and wounding his own soul.

Verse [Proverbs 19:3](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/3). ***The foolishness of man*** — Most men complain of cross providences, because they get into straits and difficulties through the *perverseness of their ways*; and thus *they fret against* *God*; whereas, in every instance, they are the causes of their own calamities. O how inconsistent is man!

Verse [Proverbs 19:4](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/4). ***The poor is separated from his neighbour.*** — Because he has the "disease of all-shunned poverty."

Verse [Proverbs 19:7](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/7). ***Do hate him*** — They *shun* him as they do the person they *hate*. They neither *hate* him *positively*, nor *love* him: they *disregard* him; they will have nothing to do with him. שנא *sana* signifies not only to hate, but to show a less degree of love to one than another. So Jacob loved Rachel, but hated Leah-showed her less affection than he did to Rachel.

Verse [Proverbs 19:10](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/10). ***Delight is not seemly for a fool*** — תענוג *taanug*, splendid or luxurious living, rank, equipage, c. These sit ill on a *fool*, though he be by birth a *lord*.
***For a servant to have rule over princes.*** — I pity the king who delivers himself into the hands of his own ministers. Such a one loses his character, and cannot be respected by his subjects, or rather *their* subjects. But it is still worse when a person of mean extraction is raised to the throne, or to any *place of power* he is generally cruel and tyrannical.

Verse [Proverbs 19:11](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/11). **It is*****his glory to pass over a transgression.*** — "No," says what is termed a *man of honour*; "he must meet me as a gentleman; I must have his blood, let God say what he will." O poor, dastardly coward! thou canst not bear the reproach of poor, flimsy, paltry fellows who ridicule thee, because thou hast refused to commit murder. Such laws should be put down by law; and the man that *gives a challenge* should be hanged, because he *intends* to commit *murder*.

Verse [Proverbs 19:12](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/12). ***The king's wrath*****is*****as the roaring of a lion*** — There is nothing more dreadful than the roaring of this tyrant of the forest. At the sound of it all other animals tremble, flee away, and hide themselves. The *king* who is above law, and rules without law, and whose will is his own law, is like the *lion*. This is strongly descriptive of the character of *Asiatic* sovereigns.

Verse [Proverbs 19:13](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/13). ***The contentions of a wife*****are*****a continual dropping.*** — The man who has got such a wife is like a tenant who has got a *cottage* with a *bad roof*, through every part of which the rain either *drops* or *pours*. He can neither *sit, stand, work*, nor *sleep*, without being exposed to these *droppings*. God help the man who is in such a case, with *house* or *wife*!

Verse [Proverbs 19:14](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/14). ***A prudent wife*****is*****from the Lord.*** — One who has a good understanding, אשה משכלת *ishshah mascaleth*; who avoids complaining, though she may often have cause for it.

Verse [Proverbs 19:15](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/15). ***Into a deep sleep*** — תרדמה *tardemah*, the same into which Adam was thrown, before Eve was taken from his side. Sloth renders a man utterly unconscious of all his interests. Though he has frequently felt hunger, yet he is regardless that his continual slothfulness must necessarily plunge him into more sufferings.

Verse [Proverbs 19:17](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/17). ***Lendeth unto the Lord*** — O what a word is this! God makes himself debtor for every thing that is given to the *poor*! Who would not *advance much* upon such *credit*? *God will pay it* *again*. And in no case has he ever forfeited his word.

Verse [Proverbs 19:18](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/18). ***Let not thy soul spare for his crying.*** — This is a hard precept for a *parent*. Nothing affects the heart of a parent so much as a child's *cries* and *tears*. But it is better that the *child* may be caused to *cry*, when the correction may be healthful to his soul, than that the parent should *cry* afterwards, when the child is grown to *man's* estate, and his evil habits are *sealed for life*.

Verse [Proverbs 19:19](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/19). ***A man of great wrath*** — He who is of an *irritable, fiery* disposition, will necessarily get himself into many broils; and he that is *surety* for him once is likely to be called on again and again for the same friendly office.

Verse [Proverbs 19:21](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/21). **There are*****many devices, &c.*** — The same sentiment as in [Proverbs 16:1](../../../kjv/proverbs/16/1), where see the note. [Proverbs 16:1](../../../kjv/proverbs/16/1).

Verse [Proverbs 19:24](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/24). ***A slothful*****man*****hideth his hand in*****his*****bosom*** — Is too lazy to feed himself, If he dip his hand *once* in the dish, he is too lazy to put it in a *second* time. It is a strange case that a man, through his excessive slothfulness, would rather starve than put himself to the trouble to eat.

Verse [Proverbs 19:26](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/26). ***He that wasteth*****his*****father*** — Destroys his substance by riotous or extravagant living, so as to embitter his latter end by poverty and affliction; and adds to this wickedness the *expulsion* *of his aged* widowed *mother* from the paternal house; *is a son of* *shame* - a most shameful man; and *a son of reproach* - one whose conduct cannot be sufficiently execrated. *Who tormentith the fader, and* *fleeth the modir, schenful schal ben, and unblisful*. - Old MS. Bible. The common reading of the *Vulgate* is, *et fugat matrem, and* *expels his mother*; but the *Old Bible* was taken from a copy that had *fugit matrem, shuns* his *mother, flees* away from her, *leaves* *her* to affliction and penury. It is prostitution of the term to call such, *man*.

Verse [Proverbs 19:27](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/27). ***Cease, my son*** — Hear nothing that would lead thee away from God and his truth.

Verse [Proverbs 19:29](../../../kjv/proverbs/19/29). ***Stripes for the back of fools.*** — *Profane* and *wicked* men expose themselves to the punishments denounced against such by just laws. Avoid, therefore, both their company and their end.

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