Proverbs 24:31 - Exposition

Thorns . Kimmashon is the word here used, but the plant has not been certainly identified (comp. Isaiah 34:13 ). Nettles ( charul ). The stinging nettle is quite common in Palestine, but the plant here meant is probably the prickly acanthus, which quickly covers any spot left uncultivated ( Job 30:7 ). Revised Version margin suggests wild vetches. Ovid, 'Trist.,' 5.12. 21—

" Adde, quod ingenium louga rubigine laesum

Torpet, et est multo, quam fuitante, minus.

Fertilis, assiduo si non renovetur aratro,

Nil, nisicum spinis gramen, habebit ager ."

So spiritual writers have used this apologue as teaching a lesson concerning the soul and the life of man, how that spiritual sloth allows the growth of evil habits, and the carelessness which maintains not the defence of law and prayer, but admits the enemy, and the result is the loss of the true riches and the perishing of the heavenly life. The two verses are thus rendered, or morally applied, in the Septuagint: "A foolish man is as a farm. and a man wanting in sense is as a vineyard; if you leave him, he will be barren, and will be altogether covered with weeds, and he will become deserted, and his fences of stone are broken down."