Proverbs Chapter 1 verse 14 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 14. - Cast in thy lot among us. The fourth and last enticement put forward, viz. honourable union and frank and open hearted generosity. It has distinct reference to the preceding verse, and shows how the prospect of immediate wealth is to be realized (see Delitzsch, Wardlaw). Cast in thy lot cannot mean, as Mercerus, "cast in your inheritance with us, so that we all may use it in common," though גּורָל (goral) does mean "inheritance" in the sense of that which comes to any one by lot (Judges 1:3) (Gesenius), since that would be no inducement to youth to join the robbers. Goral properly is "a little stone or pebble," κλῆρος, especially such as were used in casting lots, and so equivalent to a "lot" here - that with which the distribution was made, as in Leviticus 16:8; Nehemiah 10:34; and the custom of freebooters dividing the spoil by lot is here alluded to (Holden); comp. Psalm 22:18 in illustration of the practice of casting lots, "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." The sense is, "you shall equally with the others cast lots for your share of the spoil" (Zockler, Delitzsch). Let us all have one parse. Purse; כִּיס (kis), the βαλάντιον of the LXX., the marsupium of the Vulgate, is the receptacle in which money is placed for security. In Proverbs 15:11 it is used for the bag in which traders kept their weights, "the weights of the bag;" and in Proverbs 23:31 it is translated "cup," the wine cup. It here signifies the common stock, the aggregate of the gains of the robbers contributed to a common fund. The booty captured by each or any is to be thrown into one common stock, to form one purse, to be divided by lot among all the members of the band. On this community of goods among robbers, compare the Hebrew proverb, In localis, in poculis, in ira. Community of goods among the wicked carries with it community in crime, just as the community of goods among the early Christians implied community in good works and in the religious sentiments of the Christian body or Church. The Rabbi Salomon Isacides offers another explanation (which leaves the choice open to youth either to share in the spoil by lot, or to live at the expense of a common fund, as he may prefer): "Si voles, nobiscum spolia partieris, si etiam magis placebit, sociali communique marsupio nobiscum vives" - "If thou wilt, thou shalt share with us the booty; ay, if it like thee more, thou halt live with us on a confederate and common purse" (see Cornelius a Lapide).

Ellicott's Commentary