Of Various Sins against the Second Table.
WARNING AGAINST FOOLISH SURETYSHIP, IDLENESS, AND MALICE. — The author now sets forth the kind of person who is most apt to require surety, the connection of thought probably being this, that the man who went security might be considered as speaking to the lazy debtor in this manner: v. 6. Go to the ant, the proverbial emblem of industry, thou sluggard; consider her ways, carefully observing how she makes provision for herself, and be wise, learning wisdom from the irrational insect; v. 7. which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, none of the officials who were and are required in Oriental countries to oversee the average workman, v. 8. provideth her meat, her winter’s supply of food, in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest, in the heat of late summer, storing it away carefully for the time of need.
V. 9. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? lying abed in laziness. When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? And now the conduct of the lazy is graphically described, v. 10. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, an ironical imitation of the sigh of the sluggard, a little folding of the hands to sleep!
But what is the result? V. 11. So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, not merely a vagrant, but a footpad, and thy want as an armed man, one armed with a shield, prepared for both offense and defense, so that the sluggard is overwhelmed before he has seriously thought of warding off danger.