Proverbs 25:7

For better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither; than that thou shouldest be put lower in the presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) In the presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen, and whose place thou hast shamelessly taken. The same lesson was repeated by our Lord in Luke 14:10, sqq., and enforced on the ground of His own example. (Matthew 20:25, sqq.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

25:1-3 God needs not search into any thing; nothing can be hid from him. But it is the honour of rulers to search out matters, to bring to light hidden works of darkness. 4,5. For a prince to suppress vice, and reform his people, is the best way to support his government. 6,7. Religion teaches us humility and self-denial. He who has seen the glory of the Lord in Christ Jesus, will feel his own unworthiness. 8-10. To be hasty in beginning strife, will bring into difficulties. War must at length end, and might better be prevented. It is so in private quarrels; do all thou canst to settle the matter. 11,12. A word of counsel, or reproof, rightly spoken, is especially beautiful, as fine fruit becomes still more beautiful in silver baskets. 13. See what ought to be the aim of him that is trusted with any business; to be faithful. A faithful minister, Christ's messenger, should be thus acceptable to us. 14. He who pretends to have received or given that which he never had, is like the morning cloud, that disappoints those who look for rain. 15. Be patient to bear a present hurt. Be mild to speak without passion; for persuasive language is the most effectual to prevail over the hardened mind. 16. God has given us leave to use grateful things, but we are cautioned against excess.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The pushing, boastful temper is, in the long run, suicidal. It is wiser as well as nobler to take the lower place at first in humility, than to take it afterward with shame. Compare Luke 14:8-10, which is one of the few instances in which our Lord's teaching was fashioned, as to its outward form, upon that of this book.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6, 7. Do not intrude into the presence of the king, for the elevation of the humble is honorable, but the humbling of the proud disgraceful (Lu 14:8-10).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For better it is, it is more for thy credit and comfort,

that it be said unto thee, by some public officer, or by the king himself. Whom thine eyes have seen; into whose presence and acquaintance thou hast so boldly intruded thyself, who as before he observed thy impudence, so now he sees and suffers this public disgrace to be cast upon thee.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither,.... It is much more to thine honour and credit to seat thyself in a place rather beneath than above thee; which being observed by some of the officers at court, or by him whose business it is to look after such things, he will beckon or call to thee to come up to a higher and more honourable place:

than that thou shouldest be put lower, in the presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen; than that thou shouldest be thrust away with a severe rebuke for thy boldness and arrogance, in approaching too near the king's person, and taking the place of some great man, which did not become thee, and be forced down to a lower place, to thy great mortification; and the more, as this will be in the presence of the prince thou hadst the curiosity of seeing, and the ambition of making thyself acceptable to, by a gay and splendid appearance; and now with great disgrace turned out of his presence, or at least driven to a great distance from him. Our Lord seems to refer to this passage, in Luke 14:8.

Geneva Study Bible

For better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither; than that thou shouldest be put lower in the presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. Come up hither] Comp. Luke 14:8-10, and Introd. p. 33.

whom thine eyes have seen] This aggravates the disgrace: you have pressed presumptuously into the inner circle, so as to stand face to face with the prince, and there “in his presence” shalt thou be humiliated.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - For better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither. It is better for the prince to select you for elevation to a high post; to call you up near his throne. The reference is not necessarily to position at a royal banquet, though the maxim lends itself readily to such application. This warbling against arrogance and presumption was used by our blessed Lord in enforcing a lesson of humility and self-discipline (Luke 14:7, etc ). Septuagint, "For it is better for thee that it should be said, Come up unto me (ἀνάβαινε πρὸς μέ)" (προσανάβηθι ἀνώτερον, Luke 14:7). Than that thou shouldest be put lower in the presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen. The last words have been variously interpreted: "to whom thou hast come with a request for preferment;" "into whose august presence thou hast been admitted, so as to see his face" (2 Samuel 14:24); "who knows all about thee, and will thus make thee feel thy humiliation all the more." But nadib, rendered "prince," is not the king, but any noble or great man; and what the maxim means is this - that it is wise to save yourself from the mortification of being turned out of a place which you have knowingly usurped. Your own eyes see that he is in the company; you are aware of what is his proper position; you have occupied a post which belongs to another; justly you are removed, and all present witness your humiliation. The moralist knew that the bad spirit of pride was fostered and encouraged by every act of self-assertion; hence the importance of his warning. The Septuagint makes a separate sentence of these last words, "Speak thou of what thine eyes saw," or, perhaps, like St. Jerome, the Syriac, and Symmachus, attach them to the next verse. Proverbs 25:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

There now follows a second proverb with מלך, as the one just explained was a second with מלכים: a warning against arrogance before kings and nobles.

6 Display not thyself before the king,

   And approach not to the place of the great.

7 For better than one say to thee, "Come up hither,"

   Than that they humble thee before a prince,

   Whom thine eyes had seen.

The גּדלים are those, like Proverbs 18:16, who by virtue of their descent and their office occupy a lofty place of honour in the court and in the state. נדיב (vid., under Proverbs 8:16) is the noble in disposition and the nobleman by birth, a general designation which comprehends the king and the princes. The Hithpa. התהדּר is like the reflex forms Proverbs 12:9; Proverbs 13:7, for it signifies to conduct oneself as הדוּר or נהדּר (vid., Proverbs 20:29), to play the part of one highly distinguished. עמד has, 6b, its nearest signification: it denotes, not like נצּב, standing still, but approaching to, e.g., Jeremiah 7:2. The reason given in Proverbs 25:7 harmonizes with the rule of wisdom, Luke 14:10.: better is the saying to thee, i.e., that one say to thee (Ewald, 304b), עלה הנּה (so the Olewejored is to be placed), προσανάβηθι ἀνώτερον (thus in Luke), than that one humble thee לפני נדיב, not: because of a prince (Hitzig), for לפני nowhere means either pro (Proverbs 17:18) or propter, but before a prince, so that thou must yield to him (cf. Proverbs 14:19), before him whom thine eyes had seen, so that thou art not excused if thou takest up the place appropriate to him. Most interpreters are at a loss to explain this relative. Luther: "which thine eyes must see," and Schultens: ut videant oculi tui. Michaelis, syntactically admissible: quem videre gestiverunt oculi tui, viz., to come near to him, according to Bertheau, with the request that he receives some high office. Otherwise Fleischer: before the king by whom thou and thine are seen, so much the more felt is the humiliation when it comes upon one after he has pressed so far forward that he can be perceived by the king. But נדיב is not specially the king, but any distinguished personage whose place he who has pressed forward has taken up, and from which he must now withdraw when the right possessor of it comes and lays claim to his place. אשׁר is never used in poetry without emphasis. Elsewhere it is equivalent to נתנש, quippe quem, here equivalent to רפנש, quem quidem. Thine eyes have seen him in the company, and thou canst say to thyself, this place belongs to him, according to his rank, and not to thee - the humiliation which thou endurest is thus well deserved, because, with eyes to see, thou wert so blind. The lxx, Syr., Symmachus (who reads 8a, לרב, εις πλῆθος), and Jerome, refer the words "whom thine eyes had seen" to the proverb following; but אשר does not appropriately belong to the beginning of a proverb, and on the supposition that the word לרב is generally adopted, except by Symmachus, they are also heterogeneous to the following proverb: