I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;

I passed by the field of the slothful man, and by the vineyard of the foolish man:

Near the field of a slothful man I passed by, And near the vineyard of a man lacking heart.

I went by the field of the hater of work, and by the vine-garden of the man without sense;

I passed by the field of a lazy man, and by the vineyard of a foolish man,

The chapter ends with an apologue, which may be taken as a parable of something yet deeper. The field and the vineyard are more than the man's earthly possessions. His neglect brings barrenness or desolation to the garden of the soul. The "thorns" are evil habits that choke the good seed, and the "nettles" are those that are actually hurtful and offensive to others. The "wall" is the defense which laws and rules give to the inward life, and which the sluggard learns to disregard, and the "poverty" is the loss of the true riches of the soul, tranquility, and peace, and righteousness.

I went by the field of the slothful - This is a most instructive parable; is exemplified every day in a variety of forms; and is powerfully descriptive of the state of many a blackslider and trifler in religion. Calmet has an excellent note on this passage. I shall give the substance of it.
Solomon often recommends diligence and economy to his disciples. In those primitive times when agriculture was honorable, no man was respected who neglected to cultivate his grounds, who sunk into poverty, contracted debt, or engaged in ruinous securities. With great propriety, a principal part of wisdom was considered by them as consisting in the knowledge of properly conducting one's domestic affairs, and duly cultivating the inheritances derived from their ancestors. Moses had made a law to prevent the rich from utterly depressing the poor, by obliging them to return their farms to them on the Sabbatic year, and to remit all debts at the year of jubilee.
In the civil state of the Hebrews, we never see those enormous and suddenly raised fortunes, which never subsist but in the ruin of numberless families. One of the principal solicitudes of this legislator was to produce, as far as possible in a monarchical state, an equality of property and condition. The ancient Romans held agriculture in the same estimation, and highly respected those who had applied themselves to it with success. When they spoke in praise of a man, they considered themselves as giving no mean commendation when they called him a good husbandman, an excellent laborer. From such men they formed their most valiant generals and intrepid soldiers. Cato De Re Rustica, cap. 1. The property which is acquired by these means is most innocent, most solid, and exposes its possessor less to envy than property acquired in any other way. See Cicero De Officiis, lib. 1. In Britain the merchant is all in all; and yet the waves of the sea are not more uncertain, nor more tumultuous, than the property acquired in this way, or than the agitated life of the speculative merchant.
But let us look more particularly into this very instructive parable: -
I. The owner is described.
1. He was איש עצל ish atsel, the loitering, sluggish, slothful man.
2. He was אדם חסר לב adam chasar leb, a man that wanted heart; destitute of courage, alacrity, and decision of mind.
II. His circumstances. This man had,
1. שדה sadeh, a sowed field, arable ground. This was the character of his estate. It was meadow and corn land.
2. He had כרם kerem, a vineyard, what we would call perhaps garden and orchard, where he might employ his skill to great advantage in raising various kinds of fruits and culinary herbs for the support of his family.
III. The state of this heritage:
1. "It was grown over with thorns." It had been long neglected, so that even brambles were permitted to grow in the fields:
2. "Nettles had covered the face thereof." It was not weeded, and all kinds of rubbish had been suffered to multiply:
3. "The stone wall was broken down." This belonged to the vineyard: it was neither pruned nor digged; and the fence, for want of timely repairs, had all fallen into ruins, Proverbs 24:31.
IV. The effect all this had on the attentive observer.
1. I saw it, אחזה אנכי echezeh anochi, I fixed my attention on it. I found it was no mere report. It is a fact. I myself was an eyewitness of it.
2. I considered it well, אשית לבי ashith libbi, I put my heart on it. All my feelings were interested.
3. I looked upon it, רעיתי raithi, I took an intellectual view of it. And
4. Thus I received instruction, לקחתי מוסר lakachti musar, I received a very important lesson from it: but the owner paid no attention to it. He alone was uninstructed; for he "slumbered, slept, and kept his hands in his bosom." Proverbs 24:33. "Hugged himself in his sloth and carelessness."
V. The consequences of this conduct.
1. Poverty described as coming like a traveler, making sure steps every hour coming nearer and nearer to the door.
2. Want, מחסר machsor, total destitution; want of all the necessaries, conveniences, and comforts of life; and this is described as coming like an armed man כאיש מגן keish magen, as a man with a shield, who comes to destroy this unprofitable servant: or it may refer to a man coming with what we call an execution into the house, armed with the law, to take even his bed from the slumberer.
From this literal solution any minister of God may make a profitable discourse.

I went by the field of the slothful,.... This very probably was a real matter of fact; King Solomon's way lay at a certain time by the field of a slothful man, who never went into it himself, there being a lion in the way; and which he took no care of to manure and till, to plough and sow, but let it lie waste and uncultivated; an emblem of a carnal and worldly professor, and especially an unregenerate man, neglecting the affairs of his soul, his heart remaining like the fallow field unopened and unbroken, hard, obdurate, and impenitent; nothing sown in it, no seed of grace; nor has the seed of the word any place in it, but falling on it lies like seed by the wayside, caught up by every bird;
and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; as the slothful man is, that takes no care to plant and dress it, that it may bring forth fruit to his own profit and advantage; and as every unregenerate man is, who is unconcerned about his soul, and the welfare of it; whatever understanding he may have of things natural and civil, he has no knowledge of spiritual things, of God in Christ, of himself, his state and condition; of Christ, and the way of peace, life, and salvation by him; of the Spirit, and his work of grace upon the heart; and of the Gospel, and the mysteries of it; and so has no regard to the vineyard of his soul, and the plantation and fruitfulness of it; see Song 1:6.

See what a blessing the husbandman's calling is, and what a wilderness this earth would be without it. See what great difference there is in the management even of worldly affairs. Sloth and self-indulgence are the bane of all good. When we see fields overgrown with thorns and thistles, and the fences broken down, we see an emblem of the far more deplorable state of many souls. Every vile affection grows in men's hearts; yet they compose themselves to sleep. Let us show wisdom by doubling our diligence in every good thing.

A striking picture of the effects of sloth.

A Mashal ode of the slothful, in the form of a record of experiences, concludes this second supplement (vid., vol. i. p. 17):
30 The field of a slothful man I came past,
And the vineyard of a man devoid of understanding.
31 And, lo! it was wholly filled up with thorns;
Its face was covered with nettles;
And its wall of stones was broken down.
32 But I looked and directed my attention to it;
I saw it, and took instruction from it:
33 "A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest.
34 Then cometh thy poverty apace,
And thy want as an armed man."
The line 29b with לאישׁ is followed by one with אישׁ. The form of the narrative in which this warning against drowsy slothfulness is clothed, is like Psalm 37:35. The distinguishing of different classes of men by אישׁ and אדם (cf. Proverbs 24:20) is common in proverbial poetry. עברתּי, at the close of the first parallel member, retains its Pathach unchanged. The description: and, lo! (הנּהו, with Pazer, after Thorath Emeth, p. 34, Anm. 2) it was... refers to the vineyard, for נדר אבניו (its stone wall, like Isaiah 2:20, "its idols of silver") is, like Numbers 22:24; Isaiah 5:5, the fencing in of the vineyard. עלה כלּו, totus excreverat (in carduos), refers to this as subject, cf. in Ausonius: apex vitibus assurgit; the Hebrews. construction is as Isaiah 5:6; Isaiah 34:13; Gesen. 133, 1, Anm. 2. The sing. קמּשׁון of קמּשׁונים does not occur; perhaps it means properly the weed which one tears up to cast it aside, for (Arab.) kumâsh is matter dug out of the ground.
(Note: This is particularly the name of what lies round about on the ground in the Bedouin tents, and which one takes up from thence (from ḳamesh, cogn. קבץ קמץ, ramasser, cf. the journal המגיד, 1871, p. 287b); in modern Arab., linen and matter of all kinds; vid., Bocthor, under linge and toffe.)
The ancients interpret it by urticae; and חרוּל, plur. חרלּים (as from חרל), R. חר, to burn, appears, indeed, to be the name of the nettle; the botanical name (Arab.) khullar (beans, pease, at least a leguminous plant) is from its sound not Arab., and thus lies remote.
(Note: Perhaps ὄλυρα, vid., Lagarde's Gesamm. Abhandl. p. 59.)
The Pual כּסּוּ sounds like Psalm 80:11 (cf. כּלּוּ, Psalm 72:20); the position of the words is as this passage of the Psalm; the Syr., Targ., Jerome, and the Venet. render the construction actively, as if the word were כּסּוּ.
In Proverbs 24:32, Hitzig proposes to read ואחזה: and I stopped (stood still); but אחז is trans., not only at Ecclesiastes 7:9, but also at Ecclesiastes 2:15 : to hold anything fast; not: to hold oneself still. And for what purpose the change? A contemplating and looking at a thing, with which the turning and standing near is here connected, manifestly includes a standing still; ראיתי, after ואחזה, is, as commonly after הביט (e.g., Job 35:5, cf. Isaiah 42:18), the expression of a lingering looking at an object after the attention has been directed to it. In modern impressions, ואחזה אנכי are incorrectly accentuated; the old editions have rightly ואחזה with Reba; for not אנכי 'וא, but אנכי אשׁית are connected. In Proverbs 8:17, this prominence of the personal pronoun serves for the expression of reciprocity; elsewhere, as e.g., Genesis 21:24; 2-Kings 6:3, and particularly, frequently in Hosea, this circumstantiality does not make the subject prominent, but the action; here the suitable extension denotes that he rightly makes his comments at leisure (Hitzig). שׁית לב is, as at Proverbs 22:17, the turning of attention and reflection; elsewhere לקח מוּסר, to receive a moral, Proverbs 8:10, Jeremiah 7:28, is here equivalent to, to abstract, deduce one from a fact, to take to oneself a lesson from it. In Proverbs 24:33 and Proverbs 24:34 there is a repetition of Proverbs 6:9-10. Thus, as Proverbs 24:33 expresses, the sluggard speaks to whom the neglected piece of ground belongs, and Proverbs 24:34 places before him the result. Instead of כמהלּך of the original passage [Proverbs 6:9-10], here מתהלך, of the coming of poverty like an avenging Nemesis; and instead of וּמחסרך, here וּמחסריך (the Cod. Jaman. has it without the י), which might be the plene written pausal form of the sing. (vid., at Proverbs 6:3, cf. Proverbs 6:11), but is more surely regarded as the plur.: thy deficits, or wants; for to thee at one time this, and at another time that, and finally all things will be wanting. Regarding the variants ראשׁך and רישׁך (with א in the original passage, here in the borrowed passage with י), vid., at Proverbs 10:4. כּאישׁ מגן is translated in the lxx by ὥσπερ ἀγαθὸς δρομεύς (vid., at Proverbs 6:11); the Syr. and Targ. make from it a גּברא טבלרא, tabellarius, a letter-carrier, coming with the speed of a courier.