Silver Jewelry and Missing Noses - Part 1

Take away the dross from the silver, and there comes out a vessel for the smith. Take away the wicked before the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness [Proverbs 25:4-5].

There is an old expression, an aphorism if you would, which states, “That’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face!” Indeed. Sometimes when things we don’t like are so irksome, we go to extremes to be rid of them…even to our own detriment.

Such is not the case with the spiritual truth taught us in the Bible verses quoted at the start of this study. In fact the exact opposite is the case. It isn’t our nose we should cut off and remove from our presence, in order to be rid of troubling circumstances. It’s the troublemakers and instigators who need to be sent packing. And that’s a good thing.

The first verse quoted makes reference to metallurgy. The silversmith takes the precious silver ore and melts it in his furnace. The molten metal collects at the bottom of the furnace in a crucible. Floating on top the molten metal is the impure residue that is lighter than the pure metal, which is why it floats on top. This residue is known as “dross”.

In order to work with a purer form of silver, the silversmith must scrape off this top layer of dross. This leaves the pure silver for making jewelry and other assorted silver items. Without the dross the silver is much more valuable, and accordingly so are the silver items made from the pure silver.

Such items even have a noticeably more appealing appearance. No one would buy “silver” jewelry made from silver with the dross not removed, if it was placed side-by-side with silver jewelry made from pure silver. Ugh! The dross is disgusting!

This was the point the writer wanted to make, when he penned Proverbs 25. Verses 4 and 5 employ the Biblical Hebrew poetic form of synonymous parallelism. Let me define this technical term for you.

Today we tend to rhyme words at the end of two lines and identify the result as “poetry”. The Hebrews of the Bible didn’t rhyme words at the end of lines for their poetry. They rhymed ideas between lines to create poetry.

When the ideas were of things which were comparable, then the parallel ideas received the jargon synonymous parallelism. When the ideas presented a contrast between things, the parallel ideas were labeled antonymous parallelism.

The hour is late and the shadows are fast overtaking us. We will pause and refresh ourselves in the presence of the Lord at this time, and take up this topic tomorrow.

To further research this issue, I direct you to my books in the Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes Bible study series. To purchase my books please click on the "Shop" tab at the top of this page, where you will find a complete list of my books. Each book is available in both paperback (Createspace) and eBook (Kindle).

#proverbs25 #1corinthians15 #2corinthians6 #separation #evilinfluences #sanctification #consecration