Proverbs 5:12

And say, how have I hated instruction,.... To live virtuously, and avoid the adulterous woman; this he says, as wondering at his stupidity, folly, and madness, that he should hate and abhor that

And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; And say, How have I hated instruction, my heart despised reproof - reverting to Proverbs 1:29.

How have I hated instruction! oh what a mad beast have I been, to hate and slight the fair warnings which were given me, and against mine own knowledge, to run headlong into this pit of destruction! which are not the words of a true penitent mourning for and turning from his sin, but only of a man who is grieved for the sad effects of his delightful lusts, and tormented with the horror of his own guilty conscience. My heart despised reproof; I did with my whole heart abhor all admonitions.

Proverbs 5:12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;Ver. 12. And say, How have I hated, &c.] When cast out with the prodigal, and hath nothing left him but a diseased body, a distressed soul, then, all too late, he fills the air with doleful complaints of his former folly, and cries out, as he did, Totum vitae meae tempus perdidi, quia perdite vixi. Oh, what a wretch, what a beast, what a maddened devil was I, so woefully to waste the fat and marrow of my dear and precious time, the flower of mine age, the strength of my body, the vigour of my spirits, the whole of mine estate, in sinful pleasures and sensual delights! Lo, here is a kind of repentance which, though late, yet, if it were true, would be accepted, The mole, they say, begins to see when he dies, and not till then. Oculos incipit aperire moriendo, quos clausos habuit vivendo. But it is a rare thing, and seldom seen, that any whoremonger doth truly repent. "One such man among a thousand have I found," saith Solomon - perhaps he meant himself - "but a woman among all those have I not found." And yet Scultetus tells us that Dr Speiser, minister of Ansborough, in Germany, preached there so powerfully, that the common harlots, there tolerated, left their filthy trade of life, and became very honest women. And my heart despised reproof] Experience shows that they that are once given up to this sin are more graceless, profane, and incorrigible than others, deriders and contemners of all good counsel, having lost even the very light of nature, and so set in their sin, and so wedded and wedged to their wicked ways, as that they cannot be removed but by an extraordinary touch from the hand of Heaven. Bernard. Nunquam sero si serio. Tostat. ex Plinio. Anno 1523. Scultet., Annal. p. 118.

(12) How have I hated instruction.—The last stage of misery is the remorse which comes too late. (Comp. Matthew 25:30.)

11–14. The pangs of remorse and the upbraidings of conscience form the terrible climax to the loss of honour and health and substance. “ ‘Going down to the chambers of death,’ wise too late, the victim of his own sins remembers with unspeakable agony the voice of his teachers, the efforts of those who wished to instruct him.”—Horton.

More bitter than slavery, poverty, disease, will be the bitterness of self-reproach, the hopeless remorse that worketh death.

12, 13. How have I — The repentance and lamentation here exhibited are of the bitterest kind. “In the line of my duty,” says Dr. A.