Proverbs 6:2

Israel had none of the banks we know today, so loans and credit rested on personal pledges. A surety guaranteed another person’s debt or obligation, and if the borrower failed to pay, the surety had to pay in his place. The Hebrew verb behind “be surety”, ʻârab, means to braid or intermix, and so to trade by exchange and to give security. The picture fits: the surety braids his own fortunes into another man’s and takes that man’s risk as his own.

The verse names the gesture that sealed the pledge: “if thou hast stricken thy hand”. The verb tâqaʻ means to clatter or strike. It is used of slapping the hands together, clanging an instrument and driving a nail or a tent-peg, and by implication of becoming a bondsman by clasping hands. Striking the hand (tâqaʻ kaph, with kaph the hand) was the recognized way of making such an agreement binding, much as a handshake or a signature is today. From then on the surety was personally liable. If the debtor defaulted, the surety could lose his property and his freedom, and his family could be taken into servitude. When a widow could not pay her husband’s debt, the creditor came to take her two sons as bondmen (2 Kings 4:1). “The borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7), and the surety put himself in the borrower’s place for a debt that belonged to someone else.

Verse 2 tells the surety where his trouble came from: “Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.” The first verb, yâqôsh, means to ensnare, and it is used of a fowler laying a trap for birds. The second, lâkad, means to catch, capture or seize, as in a net, a trap or a pit, and it is also used of taking by lot. The second line repeats the first with its new verb, and “the words of thy mouth” stands in both, so the son hears twice over that what holds him is his own speech. The word for words, ʼêmer, comes from ʼâmar, “to say”, and is the ordinary word for something said, a saying or speech. Ordinary words were enough to bind him.

A spoken pledge bound the speaker in law and in honour, and a man’s word was his bond. The trap is of his own making, so the responsibility for it is his as well. Scripture says the same about speech throughout. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). Jesus said that men will give account of every idle word, “For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matthew 12:36–37). James tells us to be “swift to hear, slow to speak” (James 1:19). Proverbs warns that sin abounds in a multitude of words (Proverbs 10:19) and that the one who guards his mouth keeps his life and keeps himself from trouble (Proverbs 13:3, Proverbs 21:23), and Paul asks that only what builds others up come out of our mouths (Ephesians 4:29).

So the verse reaches past money to every promise, vow and oath. Our words carry weight before God and before people. The one who may dwell with the LORD “sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not” (Psalm 15:4), and in Nehemiah’s day the people bound themselves with a curse and an oath to walk in God’s law (Nehemiah 10:29). God is faithful to his covenants, and he calls his people to keep their word, which is the very reason to weigh a promise before making it.

Verse 3 moves from warning to action: “Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself”. Delay only makes such a predicament worse, so the father asks for action today. “Deliver” is nâtsal, to snatch away, rescue or deliver. The one to be delivered is the son himself, and he is the one who must take the step.

“When thou art come into the hand of thy friend” describes where he stands. To be in someone’s hand is to be in his power. The pledge has put the son under the control of another, whether the friend he vouched for or the one to whom the debt is owed, and he has lost the freedom to dispose of what is his.

Then come three commands: “go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend.” “Go” means he takes the first step himself. “Humble thyself” is râphaç, which literally means to trample or to prostrate, and in the reflexive form used here means to humble oneself, laying pride down and pleading in earnest. “Make sure” is râhab, to urge severely or to importune. The word can carry a sense of insolence elsewhere, and here it describes pressing the friend persistently until he releases the pledge. The son is to keep at it, humbly and without letting up, until he is free, the matter is settled and trust is restored.

Jesus gives counsel of the same kind: “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him” (Matthew 5:25), and if your brother has something against you, go and be reconciled to him before you bring your gift to the altar (Matthew 5:23–24). Humbling ourselves is the way to grace, because “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6). The steps of this verse fit any mistake we have to put right, a broken promise or a wrong done to someone as much as a debt: act quickly, own the fault before the one we have wronged and before God, and work steadily until it is made right.

Verse 4 says how urgent this is: “Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.” The verb nâthan is the common word for “give”, used very widely for putting, setting, making and yielding, so the command means to keep sleep away until the matter is done. shênâh, from yâshên, is ordinary sleep, and tᵉnûwmâh, from nûwm, to nod, is slumber or drowsiness, the nodding off of a tired man. Between them they cover everything from deep sleep to a doze, and the eyes and eyelids stand for the whole person.

Verse 5 gives two pictures: “Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.” “Deliver” is nâtsal again, the same verb as in verse 3. Its object is the one delivered, here the son himself, and “from the hand of” marks the danger he is taken out of. He is to snatch himself free.

The roe is tsᵉbîy, a word for splendor or beauty that is also the name of the gazelle, prized for its grace, speed and agility. When a gazelle feels the hunter’s grasp, it runs for its life at once. The fowler is yâqûwsh, literally “entangled”, and so a snare or one who sets snares, a bird-catcher with nets and hidden traps. The bird in his hand is already caught and has to struggle to get free. These were familiar sights in a land where people hunted and trapped birds for food, and both pictures say the same thing: get out with all the speed and effort of an animal fleeing for its life. The snare of verse 2 now has a snarer, and the pledge that caught the son is the trap he has to break out of.

The best escape is to stay clear of the trap from the start, and that is the work of wisdom, which Proverbs calls “the principal thing” (Proverbs 4:7). Where someone is already caught, Scripture’s word is to flee, as Paul tells Timothy to “flee also youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22), and that holds for any entanglement, whether it comes from poor judgment, pressure from others or a sinful habit.

Scripture uses the word of this passage for Jesus: “By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament” (Hebrews 7:22). Proverbs warns a son against rash pledges for people whose faithfulness is unknown. Christ became surety for us knowingly and willingly, as the faithful Son of God, in a covenant that cannot fail. He took on himself the debt of our sin, a debt we were powerless to pay. God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In him “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7), and the record of debt that stood against us has been blotted out (Colossians 2:13–14).

The other verses point the same way. Verse 3 tells the son to humble himself, and Christ “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). He has made our peace with God secure, and he ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). Verse 4 asks for a sleepless urgency, and Jesus was about his Father’s business (Luke 2:49), stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), prayed in Gethsemane in such agony that his sweat was as great drops of blood (Luke 22:44), and endured the cross for the joy set before him (Hebrews 12:2).

Verse 5 pictures escape from the hunter and the fowler, and we were held in the snare of sin and death, powerless to free ourselves. Christ, the Lamb of God (John 1:29), came into that snare for us. Through his death he destroyed the devil, who had the power of death, and set free those who had been held in bondage by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14–15). God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness” (Colossians 1:13–14), and our old man was crucified with Christ so that we are freed from sin (Romans 6:6–7). The father’s “Do this now” has its echo in the gospel: “behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

These verses show a father who cares about the plain business of his son’s life, his money, his promises and his freedom, and in them God gives us wisdom for exactly those things. Our words carry weight, and a pledge made in a moment can bind us long afterwards. Where we have already been caught, there is a way out, by going at once, humbling ourselves and pressing on until the matter is settled. Behind the warning stands the God who provided for us the very thing this passage tells a son to beware of. In Christ he gave us a Surety who took on a debt that was ours and paid it in full, so that we could go free.