
Text -- Proverbs 15:17 (NET)




Names, People and Places, Dictionary Themes and Topics



collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)
Clarke -> Pro 15:17
Clarke: Pro 15:17 - -- Better is a dinner of herbs - Great numbers of indigent Hindoos subsist wholly on herbs, fried in oil, and mixed with their rice.
Better is a dinner of herbs - Great numbers of indigent Hindoos subsist wholly on herbs, fried in oil, and mixed with their rice.
TSK -> Pro 15:17

collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)
Barnes -> Pro 15:17
Barnes: Pro 15:17 - -- A dinner of herbs - The meals of the poor and the abstemious. The "stalled ox,"like the "fatted calf"of Luk 15:23, would indicate a stately mag...
A dinner of herbs - The meals of the poor and the abstemious. The "stalled ox,"like the "fatted calf"of Luk 15:23, would indicate a stately magnificence.
Poole -> Pro 15:17
Love true friendship and kindness between those that eat together.
Haydock -> Pro 15:17
Calf. Or feast after sacrifice, 1 Kings xvii. 19., and Luke xv. 23.
Gill -> Pro 15:17
Gill: Pro 15:17 - -- Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is,.... What Plautus i calls "asperam et terrestrem caenam", "a harsh and earthly supper", made of what grows...
Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is,.... What Plautus i calls "asperam et terrestrem caenam", "a harsh and earthly supper", made of what grows out of the earth; which is got without much cost or care, and dressed with little trouble; a traveller's dinner, as the word k signifies, and a poor one too to travel upon, such as is easily obtained, and presently cooked, and comes cheap. Now, where there are love and good nature in the host that prepares this dinner; or in a family that partakes of such an one, having no better; or among guests invited, who eat friendly together; or in the person that invites them, who receives them cheerfully, and heartily bids them welcome: such a dinner, with such circumstances, is better
than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith; than an ox kept up in the stall for fattening; or than a fatted one, which with the ancients was the principal in a grand entertainment; hence the allusion in Mat 22:4. In the times of Homer, an ox was in high esteem at their festivals; at the feasts made by his heroes, Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Ajax, an ox was a principal part of them, if not the whole; the back of a fat ox, or a sirloin of beef, was a favourite dish l. Indeed in some ages, both among Greeks and Romans, an ox was abstained from, through a superstitious regard to it, because so useful a creature in ploughing of the land; and it was carried so far as to suppose it to be as sinful to slay an ox as to kill a man m: and Aratus n represents it as not done, neither in the golden nor silver age, but that in the brasen age men first began to kill and eat oxen; but this is to be confuted by the laws of God, Gen 9:3; and by the examples of Abraham and others. Now if there is hatred, either in the host, or in the guests among themselves, or in a family, it must stir up strifes and contentions, and render all enjoyments unpleasant and uncomfortable; see Pro 17:1; but where the love of God is, which is better than life, and the richest enjoyments of it; which sweetens every mercy, and cannot be purchased with money; and secures the best of blessings, the riches of grace and glory, and itself can never be lost; where this is, the meanest diet is preferable to the richest and most costly banquets of wicked men; who are hated and abhorred by the Lord, for their oppression and injustice, their luxury, or their covetousness; for poor men may be loved of God, and the rich be abhorred by him, Psa 10:4.

expand allCommentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

expand allCommentary -- Verse Range Notes
MHCC -> Pro 15:16-17
MHCC: Pro 15:16-17 - --Believers often have enough when worldly eyes see little; the Lord is with them, without the cares, troubles, and temptations which are with the wealt...
Matthew Henry -> Pro 15:16-17
Matthew Henry: Pro 15:16-17 - -- Solomon had said in the foregoing verse that he who has not a large estate, or a great income, but a cheerful spirit, has a continual feast; Chris...
Keil-Delitzsch -> Pro 15:7-17
Keil-Delitzsch: Pro 15:7-17 - --
A second series which begins with a proverb of the power of human speech, and closes with proverbs of the advantages and disadvantages of wealth.
...
Constable -> Pro 10:1--22:17; Pro 14:1--15:33
Constable: Pro 10:1--22:17 - --II. COUPLETS EXPRESSING WISDOM 10:1--22:16
Chapters 1-9, as we have seen, contain discourses that Solomon eviden...
