Proverbs Chapter 15 verse 19 Holy Bible

ASV Proverbs 15:19

The way of the sluggard is as a hedge of thorns; But the path of the upright is made a highway.
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BBE Proverbs 15:19

Thorns are round the way of the hater of work; but the road of the hard worker becomes a highway.
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DARBY Proverbs 15:19

The way of the sluggard is as a hedge of thorns; but the path of the upright is made plain.
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KJV Proverbs 15:19

The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain.
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WBT Proverbs 15:19


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WEB Proverbs 15:19

The way of the sluggard is like a thorn patch, But the path of the upright is a highway.
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YLT Proverbs 15:19

The way of the slothful `is' as a hedge of briers, And the path of the upright is raised up.
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 19. - The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns. The indolent sluggard is always finding or imagining difficulties and hindrances in his path, which serve as excuses for his laziness. The word for "thorn" here is chedek. It occurs elsewhere only in Micah 7:4, where the Authorized Version has "briar;" but the particular plant intended is not ascertained. Most writers consider it to be some spinous specimen of the solanum. The word refers, it is thought, to a class of plants the name of one of which, at least, the miscalled "apple of Sodom," is well known in poetry, and is a proverbial expression for anything which promises fair but utterly disappoints on trial. "This plant, which is really a kind of potato, grows everywhere in the warmer parts of Palestine, rising to a widely branching shrub from three to five feet high; the wood thickly set with spines; the flower like that of the potato, and the fruit, which is larger than the potato apple, perfectly round, and changing from yellow to bright red as it ripens.... The osher of the Arab is the true apple of Sodom. A very tropical-looking plant, its fruit is like a large smooth apple or orange, and hangs in clusters of three or four together. When ripe, it is yellow, and looks fair and attractive, and is soft to the touch, but if pressed, it bursts with a crack, and only the broken shell and a raw of small seeds in a half-open pod, with a few dry filaments, remain in the hand" (Geikie, 'Holy Land and Bible,' 2:74, 117). Cato, 'Dist.,' 54:3, 5 - "Segnitiem fugito, quae vitae ignavia fertur;Nam quum animus languet, consumit inertia corpus." To the sluggard is opposed the righteous in the second member, because indolence is a grievous sin, and the greatest contrast to the active industry of the man who fears God and does his duty. The way of the righteous is made plain; "is a raised causeway;" selulah, as Proverbs 16:17: Isaiah 40:3; Isaiah 49:11. The upright man, who treads the path appointed for him resolutely and trustfully, finds all difficulties vanish; before him the thorns yield a passage; and that which the sluggard regarded as dangerous and impassable becomes to him as the king's highway. Vulgate, "The path of the just is without impediment;" Septuagint, "The roads of the manly (ἀνδρείων) are well beaten." St. Gregory ('Moral.,' 30:51), "Whatever adversity may have fallen in their way of life, the righteous stumble not against it. Because with the bound of eternal hope, and of eternal contemplation, they leap over the obstacles of temporal adversity" (comp. Psalm 18:29).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(19) As a hedge of thorns.--Every difficulty in his path serves as an excuse for inaction (comp. Proverbs 22:13); while the upright man, who does his duty as in the sight of God, goes "from strength to strength" (Psalm 84:7), along the path of life smoothed for him (Isaiah 26:7), performing the "just works" appointed for him to do.