Week 27 Proverbs 6
My son, if you have become surety for your neighbor…(then) deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hunter’s hand
I look at several other versions. Some of them use the word surety. But others are a bit more helpful:
if you have put up security for your neighbor…
if you guarantee a loan for your neighbor…
if you have become a guarantor for your neighbor…
One of them cuts straight to-the-chase: don’t promise to pay for what your neighbor owes.
I check the word surety. A surety is a security bond.
A security bond works like this. Let’s say there’s three guys.
Guy #1 has $10,000
Guy #2 needs $10,000
Guy #2 asks Guy #1 to loan him $10,000 but Guy #1 isn’t confident that Guy #2 can pay it back.
That’s when Guy #3 appears. Guy #2 asks Guy #3 if he will be ‘surety’ for him. That means that Guy #3 (who Guy #1 does trust) will promise to repay the $10,000 debt if Guy #2 doesn’t.
Thinking about sureties today I come away with two things. First I need to be very cautious about promising to repay someone else’s loan.
Second thing is this. Solomon was a very deeply & thoughtfully religious man (at least until later in life) and some of his proverbs were deeply & thoughtfully religious. But others – like this one about not guaranteeing someone else’s loan – aren’t religious at all. (Unless telling someone not to be a financial moron is religious advice.)
Note: quotes from Proverbs 6:1 & 6 (NASB and CSB CEB LSB NIRV)