5 Don't trust in a neighbor. Don't put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your mouth!
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Prophet pursues the subject we discussed yesterday, -- that liberty, in iniquity, bad arrived to its highest point, for no faithfulness remained among men; nay, there was no more any humanity; for the son performed not his duty towards his father, nor the daughter-in-law towards her mother-in-law; in short, there was then no mutual love and concord. He does not here speak of that false confidence, by which many deceive themselves, who rely on mortals, and transfer to them the glory which belongs to God. Those therefore without any reason, philosophize here, who say, that we ought not to trust in men; for this was not the design of the Prophet. But our Prophet complains of his times according to the tenor of Ovid's description of the iron age, who says - "--A guest is not safe from his host; Nor a brother-in-law from a son-in-law; and brotherly love is rare: A husband seeks the death of his wife, and she, of her husband; Cruel stepmothers mingle the lurid poison; The son, before the day, inquires into the years of his father." [1] So also our Prophet says, that there was no regard to humanity among men; for the wife was ready to betray her husband, the son treated his father with reproach; in short, they had all forgotten humanity or natural affection. We now then understand what the Prophet means by saying, Trust not a friend; [2] that is, if any one hopes for any thing from a friend, he will be deceived; for nothing can be found among men but perfidy. Put no faith in a counselor So I render the word 'lvph, aluph; some translate it, an elder brother; but there is no necessity to constrain us to depart from the proper and true meaning of the word. As then the Prophet had spoken of an associate or a friend, so he now adds a counselor. And it proves what he had in view, when he says in the next clause, that no enemies are worse than domestics. We hence see that the Prophet simply means, that the men of his age were not only avaricious and cruel to one another, but that without any regard to human feelings the son rebelled against his father, and thus subverted the whole order of nature; So that they had none of those affections, which seem at the same time to be incapable of being extinguished in men. Let us now proceed --
1 - See Ov. Met. Lib. I. 144-148.
2 - Ne fidatis amico: it is rather, Believe not in a friend, that is, in what he says, 'l-t'mynv vr. The next expression is that which signifies reliance, trust or confidence. 'lvph, is a leader; egoumenos in Sept., one who leads the way. Diodati gives its true meaning, -- "A conductor, the most trusty friend, who is one's usual counselor in every difficulty and perplexity." Jerome refers to scriptural instances as to the persons here mentioned: the friend, Ahitophel and Judas, -- the counselor, Abimelek, who was made king by the men of Sichem, and oppressed them, -- domestics, Absalom and the wives of Esau. The word used for "dishonoring" is very strong; mnvl, one who counts a thing worthless or abominable; it means not only to dishonor, but to regard with disdain and contempt. "The contempt and violation of the laws of domestic duties," Henry justly observes, "are a sad symptom of an universal corruption of manners. Those are never likely to come to good who are undutiful to their parents, and study to be provoking to them and cross them." -- Ed.
Trust ye not in a friend - It is part of the perplexity of crooked ways, that all relationships are put out of joint. Selfishness rends each from the other, and disjoints the whole frame of society. Passions and sin break every band of friendship, kindred, gratitude, nature. "Everyone 'seeketh his own'." Times of trial and of outward harass increase this; so that God's visitations are seasons of the most frightful recklessness as to everything but sell: So had God foretold Deuteronomy 28:53; so it was in the siege of Samaria 2-Kings 6:28, and in that of Jerusalem both by the Chaldeans Lamentations 4:3-16 and by the Romans . When the soul has lost the love of God, all other is but sceming love, since "natural affection" is from Him, and it too dies out, as God gives the soul over to itself Romans 1:28. The words describe partly the inward corruption, partly the outward causes which shall call it forth.
There is no real trust in any, where all are eorrupt. The outward straitness and perplexity, in which they shall be, makes that to crumble and fall to pieces, which was inwardly decayed and severed before. The words deepen, as they go on. First, "the friend", or neighbor, the common band of man and man; then "the guide", (or, as the word also means, one "familiar", united by intimacy, to whom, by continual intercourse, the soul was "used";) then the wife who lay in the bosom, nearest to the secrets of the heart; then those to whom all reverence is due, "father" and "mother". Our Lord said that this should be fulfilled in the hatred of His Gospel. He begins His warning as to it, with a caution like that of the prophet; "Be ye wise as serpents" Matthew 10:16-17, and "beware of men". Then He says, how these words should still be true Matthew 10:21, Matthew 10:35-36. There never were wanting pleas of earthly interest against the truth.
He Himself was "cut off" lest "the Romans should take away their place and nation" John 11:48. The Apostles were accused, that they meant to "bring this Man's Blood upon" the chief priests Acts 5:28; or as "ringleaders of the sect of the Nazarenes, pestilant fallows and movers of sedition, turning the world upside down, setters up of another king; troublers of the city; comanding things unlawful for Romans to practice; setters forth of strange gods; turning away much people" Acts 24:5; Acts 16:20-21; Acts 17:6-7, Acts 17:18; 1-Peter 2:12; endangering not men's craft only, but the honor of their gods; "evil doers". Truth is against the world's ways, so the world is against it. Holy zeal hates sin, so sinners hate it. It troubles them, so they count it, "one which troubleth Israel" 1-Kings 18:17. Tertullian, in a public defense of Christians in the second century, writes, , "Truth set out with being herself hated; as soon as she appeared, she is an enemy. As many as are strangers to it, so many are its foes; and the Jews indeed appropriately from their rivalry, the soldiers from their violence, even they of our own household from nature. Each flay are we beset, each day betrayed; in our very meetings and assemblies are we mostly surprised."
There was no lack of pleas. : "A Christian thou deemest a man guilty of every crime, an encmy of the goals, of the Emperors, of law, of morals, of all nature;" "factious," "authors of all public calamities through the anger of the pagan gods," "impious," "atheists," "disloyal," "public enemies." The Jews, in the largest sense of the word "they of their own household", were ever the deadliest enemies of Christians, the inventors of calumnies, the authors of persecutions. "What other race," says , Tertullian, "is the seed-plot of our calumnies?"
Then the Acts of the Martyrs tell, how Christians were betrayed by near kinsfolk for private interest, or for revenge, because they would not join in things unlawful. Jerome: "So many are the instances in daily life, (of the daughter rising against the mother) that we should rather mourn that they are so many, than seek them out." - "I seek no examples, (of those of a man's own househould being his foes) they are too many, that we should have any need of witness." Dionysius: "Yet ought we not, on account of these and like words of Holy Scripture, to be mistrustful or suspicious, or always to presume the worst, but to be cautious and prudent. For Holy Scripture speaketh with reference to times, causes, persons, places." So John saith, "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God" 1-John 4:1.
Trust ye not in a friend - These times will be so evil, and the people so wicked, that all bonds will be dissolved; and even the most intimate will betray each other, when they can hope to serve themselves by it.
On this passage, in the year 1798, I find I have written as follows: -
"Trust ye not in a friend. - Several of those whom I have delighted to call by that name have deceived me.
"Put ye not confidence in a guide. - Had I followed some of these I should have gone to perdition.
"Keep the door of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. - My wife alone never deceived me."
It is now twenty-seven years since, and I find no cause to alter what I then wrote.
Trust ye not in a friend,.... This is not said to lessen the value of friendship; or to discourage the cultivation of it with agreeable persons; or to dissuade from a confidence in a real friend; or in the least to weaken it, and damp the pleasure of true friendship, which is one of the great blessings of life; but to set forth the sad degeneracy of the then present age, that men, who pretended to be friends, were so universally false and faithless, that there was no dependence to be had on them:
put ye not confidence in a guide; in political matters, in civil affairs, as civil magistrates, judges, counsellors; or in domestic matters. The Targum renders it, in one near akin. Kimchi interprets it of an elder brother; and Aben Ezra of a husband, who is to his wife the guide of her youth; and in religious matters as prophets, priests who were false and deceitful. It may design a very intimate friend, a familiar acquaintance, who might of all men be thought to be confided in; of whom the word is used, Psalm 55:13;
keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom; from a wife, and much more from a concubine or harlot. The Targum is,
"from the wife of thy covenant keep the words of thy mouth;''
divulge not the thoughts of thine heart, or disclose the secrets of it, to one so near; take care of speaking treason against the prince, or ill of a neighbour; it may be got out of such an one, and who may be so base as to betray it: or utter not anything whatever that is secret, the divulging of which may be detrimental; for, in such an age as this was, one in so near a relation might be wicked enough to discover it; see Ecclesiastes 10:20.
Trust ye not in a friend--Faith is kept nowhere: all to a man are treacherous (Jeremiah 9:2-6). When justice is perverted by the great, faith nowhere is safe. So, in gospel times of persecution, "a man's foes are they of his own household" (Matthew 10:35-36; Luke 12:53).
guide--a counsellor [CALVIN] able to help and advise (compare Psalm 118:8-9; Psalm 146:3). The head of your family, to whom all the members of the family would naturally repair in emergencies. Similarly the Hebrew is translated in Joshua 22:14 and "chief friends" in Proverbs 16:28 [GROTIUS].
her that lieth in thy bosom--thy wife (Deuteronomy 13:6).
*More commentary available at chapter level.