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287 illustrations — Lessons from history, biography, and world events
Some possess remarkable skill in dwelling exclusively upon dark things: black aspects, wintry phases, deprivations, bereavements, losses.
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Yet the mind claims a sovereignty over the body that the body can never assert in return.
Yet Christians must judge timidity differently than the world does.
Exell's 1887 commentary illuminates this paradox of proximity: practical presence surpasses emotional kinship when assistance is required.
Exell notes the critical distinction: it is not the place itself, but the way to it.
Exell's commentary on Proverbs 20:17, the love of pleasure stands as "the secret of the failure of nine-tenths of our unsuccessful young men." The wise man identifies pleasure—particularly when pursued as *hedone* (self-gratification)—as fundamentally opposed to material and spiritual prosperity.
It is through blindness and inconsonsideration that any man becomes entangled in the snares of the foolish woman.
This text reveals a profound truth: bodily satisfaction depends entirely upon the soul's condition.
Beneath apparent severity lies the spirit of true kindness.
Mystery envelops human existence—commonest objects raise unanswerable questions—yet from this unknowable realm emerge four irreversible certainties.
The coward's shame lies not in what he speaks, but in what he leaves unsaid—his refusal to act.
The flattery here is not gentle commendation but *kelalah* (curse)—a loud, vaunting display that intrudes itself on all occasions with busy, demonstrative energy.
Exell observes that science itself demonstrates this principle: the passions of grief, disappointment, anger, jealousy, and revenge derange the bodily system in proportion to their strength, while pleasurable emotions rooted in moral virtue give buoyancy and vigor to the body.
Man suffers equally under two extremes: subjected without redress to another's passions, or abandoned to the dominion of his own.
The present is intimately related to the future, and the future will faithfully reflect the character.
While all persons possess some sense of duty rooted deeply in the human heart, the constant strife between inclination and principle generates contradiction in conduct.
The *peripateo* (walking) denotes chosen motion—not forced proximity, but intentional association.
Exell's Victorian commentary on Proverbs 25:15 illuminates what seemed paradoxical to ancient minds: that meekness, courteousness, and kindness possess greater persuasive force than harshness, bitterness, or clamour.
Exell (1887) identifies flattery's essential character: it assumes all forms and colors, a universal countenance indifferent to truth.
The proverb's geography matters—the north wind's effect depends on terrain, just as righteous anger's effect depends on its proper object.
The latter we enjoy now through faith and hope; but the former is present with us, the certain consequence and necessary attendant upon a mind truly virtuous and religious.
Consider two grave consequences: First, pride subjects a man to the imputation of folly.
The ruined city in Solomon's metaphor depicts precisely this condition.
First, the wicked man takes deliberate pains to devise evil, much as a miner searches for treasure in concealed depths.