1 A good name is more desirable than great riches, and loving favor is better than silver and gold.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Omit "good." The word is an insertion. To the Hebrew, "name" by itself conveyed the idea of good repute, just as "men without a name" (compare Job 30:8 margin) are those sunk in ignominy. The margin gives a preferable rendering of the second clause of this verse.
A good name - שם shem, a name, put for reputation, credit, fame. Used nearly in the same way that we use it: "He has got a name;" "his name stands high;" for "He is a man of credit and reputation." טבא toba, καλον, hamood, and bonum, are added by the Chaldee, Septuagint, Arabiac, and Vulgate, all signifying good or excellent.
Is rather to be chosen than great riches - Because character will support a man in many circumstances; and there are many rich men that have no name: but the word of the man of character will go farther than all their riches.
A [good] name [is] rather to be chosen than great riches, [and] (a) loving favour rather than silver and gold.
(a) Which comes by well doing.
A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches,.... The word "good" is not in the text, but is rightly supplied, as it is by the Targum, Septuagint, and Vulgate Latin versions; for it is not any name that is more eligible than riches; nor is it a need name among any sort of persons; for to have a good name with some turns to a man's reproach rather than to his credit; but a good name among good men, a name in the house of God, which is better than sons and daughters; a new name, the name of the children of God, which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it; this is to be preferred to a multitude of riches: it is not to be procured by them, and is where they are not, or are lost, but this continues; see Ecclesiastes 7:1;
and loving favour rather them silver and gold; favour with God and man, especially with God, whose loving kindness is better than life, and all the enjoyments of it: or, as it may be rendered, "grace is better than silver and gold" (p); the grace of God through Christ, the grace of Christ, in whom all fulness of it dwells, the grace of the Spirit of Christ; faith is more precious than gold that perisheth; and if a man would give all the substance of his house for love it would be contemned; the Spirit and his grace are not to be purchased for money.
(p) "gratia melior", Munster, Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Michaelis; so Schultens.
We should be more careful to do that by which we may get and keep a good name, than to raise or add unto a great estate.
(Proverbs. 22:1-29)
A good name-- (Job 30:8, Hebrew); "good" is supplied here from Ecclesiastes 7:1.
loving favour--kind regard, that is, of the wise and good.
Favour - A good report among men, especially good men, and that hearty kindness which attends it.
*More commentary available at chapter level.