Proverbs 27:20

Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(20) Hell and destruction.—See above on Proverbs 15:11.

The eyes of man are never satisfied.—Comp. Ecclesiastes 1:8; Ecclesiastes 4:8. God would thus teach us that in Himself only can man find complete satisfaction. (Comp. Psalm 36:8-9; 1Corinthians 2:9.)

Benson Commentary

Proverbs 27:20. Hell and destruction are never full — The grave devours all the bodies which are put into it, and is always ready to receive and devour more and more without end; so the eyes of man are never satisfied — That is, his desires, which work and discover themselves by his eyes.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

27:15,16. The contentions of a neighbour may be like a sharp shower, troublesome for a time; the contentions of a wife are like constant rain. 17. We are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with. And directed to have in view, in conversation, to make one another wiser and better. 18. Though a calling be laborious and despised, yet those who keep to it, will find there is something to be got by it. God is a Master who has engaged to honour those who serve him faithfully. 19. One corrupt heart is like another; so are sanctified hearts: the former bear the same image of the earthly, the latter the same image of the heavenly. Let us carefully watch our own hearts, comparing them with the word of God. 20. Two things are here said to be never satisfied, death and sin. The appetites of the carnal mind for profit or pleasure are always desiring more. Those whose eyes are ever toward the Lord, are satisfied in him, and shall for ever be so. 21. Silver and gold are tried by putting them into the furnace and fining-pot; so is a man tried by praising him. 22. Some are so bad, that even severe methods do not answer the end; what remains but that they should be rejected? The new-creating power of God's grace alone is able to make a change. 23-27. We ought to have some business to do in this world, and not to live in idleness, and not to meddle with what we do not understand. We must be diligent and take pains. Let us do what we can, still the world cannot be secured to us, therefore we must choose a more lasting portion; but by the blessing of God upon our honest labours, we may expect to enjoy as much of earthly blessings as is good for us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Hades, the world of the dead, and Destruction (Death, the destroying power, personified) have been at all times and in all countries thought of as all-devouring, insatiable (compare the marginal reference). Yet one thing is equally so, the lust of the eye, the restless craving which grows with what it feeds on Ecclesiastes 1:8.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20. Men's cupidity is as insatiable as the grave.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Hell and destruction are never full; the grave devours all the bodies which are put into it, and is always ready to receive and devour more and more without end.

The eyes, i.e. the desires, which work and discover themselves by the eyes, 1Jo 2:16, and other senses; for otherwise the eyes in themselves are neither capable of satisfaction nor of dissatisfaction.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Hell and destruction are never full,.... The grave, as the word used often signifies; and which may be called "destruction", because bodies laid in it are soon corrupted and destroyed; and though bodies are cast into it and devoured by it, it is ready for more; it is one of the four things which never have enough. The place where Gog is said to be buried is called Hamongog, the multitude of Gog, Ezekiel 39:11; and by the Septuagint there Polyandrion, which is the name the Greeks give to a burying place, because many men are buried there; and with the Latins the dead are called Plures (o), the many, or the more; and yet the grave is never satisfied with them, Proverbs 30:16. Or hell, the place of everlasting damnation and destruction, is meant, which has received multitudes of souls already, and where there is room for more, nor will it be full until the last day;

so the eyes of man are never satisfied; as not the eyes of his body with seeing corporeal objects, but still are desirous of seeing more, and indeed everything that is to be seen, and are never glutted, Ecclesiastes 1:8; so neither the eyes of the carnal mind, or the lusts of it, which are insatiable things, let the objects of them be what they will; as in an ambitious man, a covetous person, or an unclean one.

(o) Plauti Trinum, Acts 2. Sc. 2. v. 14.

Geneva Study Bible

Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

20. Hell and destruction] See Proverbs 15:11, note.

full] Rather, satisfied, the Heb. word being the same as at the end of the verse. Comp. Ecclesiastes 1:8; Ecclesiastes 4:8.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 20. - Hell and destruction are never full. "Hell" is sheol, the under-world, Hades, the place of the departed; "destruction" is the great depth, the second death, personified (see on Proverbs 15:11, where the terms also occur). These "are never satisfied," they are insatiable, all-devouring (comp. Proverbs 30:16; Isaiah 5:14; Habakkuk 2:5). So the eyes of man are never satisfied. The verb is the same in both clauses, and ought to have been so translated. The eye is taken as the representative of concupiscence in general. What is true of "the lust of the eyes" (1 John 2:16) is true of all the senses; the craving for their gratification grows as it is fed. Therefore the senses should be carefully guarded, lest they lead to excess and transgression. "Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity," said the psalmist, "and quicken me in thy way" (Psalm 119:37). The LXX. here introduces a paragraph not in the Hebrew or the Latin Versions: "He that fixes (στηρίζων) his eye [i.e. staring impudently] is an abomination to the Lord, and the uninstructed restrain not their tongue." Proverbs 27:20

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The following proverb has, in common with the preceding, the catchword האדם, and the emphatic repetition of the same expression:

20 The under-world and hell are not satisfied,

     And the eyes of man are not satisfied.

A Kerı̂ ואבדון is here erroneously noted by Lwenstein, Stuart, and others. The Kerı̂ to ואבדּה is here ואבדּו, which secures the right utterance of the ending, and is altogether wanting

(Note: In Gesen. Lex. this אבדה stands to the present day under אבדה.)

in many MSS (e.g., Cod. Jaman). The stripping off of the ן from the ending ון is common in the names of persons and places (e.g., שׁלמה, lxx Σολομών and שׁלה); we write at pleasure either ow or oh (e.g., מגדּו), Olsh. 215g. אבדּה (אבדּו) of the nature of a proper name, is already found in its full form אבדּון at Proverbs 15:11, along with שׁאול; the two synonyms are, as was there shown, not wholly alike in the idea they present, as the underworld and realm of death, but are related to each other almost the same as Hades and Gehenna; אבדון is what is called

(Note: Vid., Frankel, Zu dem Targum der Propheten (1872), p. 25.)

in the Jonathan-Targum בּית אבדּנא, the place of destruction, i.e., of the second death (מותא תנינא). The proverb places Hades and Hell on the one side, and the eyes of man on the other, on the same line in respect of their insatiableness. To this Fleischer adds the remark: cf. the Arab. al'ayn l'a taml'aha all'a altrab, nothing fills the eyes of man but at last the dust of the grave - a strikingly beautiful expression! If the dust of the grave fills the open eyes, then they are full - fearful irony! The eye is the instrument of seeing, and consequently in so far as it always looks out after and farther, it is the instrument and the representation of human covetousness. The eye is filled, is satisfied, is equivalent to: human covetousness is appeased. But first "the desire of the eye," 1 John 2:16, is meant in the proper sense. The eyes of men are not satisfied in looking and contemplating that which is attractive and new, and no command is more difficult to be fulfilled than that in Isaiah 33:15, "...that shutteth his eyes from seeing evil." There is therefore no more inexhaustible means, impiae sepculationis, than the desire of the eyes.