Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 6:1-5

My son, if you become surety for your friend,
If you have shaken hands in pledge for a stranger,
You are snared by the words of your mouth;
You are taken by the words of your mouth.
So do this, my son, and deliver yourself;
For you have come into the hand of your friend:
Go and humble yourself;
Plead with your friend.
Give no sleep to your eyes,
Nor slumber to your eyelids.
Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
And like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

Proverbs 6:1-5 (NKJV).

Years ago I became familiar with the phrase "piecrust promise". The idea is that this type of promise is "easily made, easily broken." The promises that we make, the circumstances we bind ourselves to, matter. Details matter, friendships matter, your friends and neighbors matter.

Solomon does not tell the son who has made a bad pledge to neglect the promise, nor to disregard the friend, but instead to plead with them on how to satisfy or break free from the agreement. The details on what extent is reasonable for the friend to require are not discussed, not offered as a "balance", because the promise has already been made, and whether in wisdom or foolishness, we should stand by our promises, or at the minimum be honest about our capacity to fulfill them.

The natural consequence of this is that we should carelessly make promises, and will in turn likely make fewer of them. Our word, our honor, is not something we should toss about without care and consideration. What we commit to should be something that we will have no hesitation supporting well into the future, and if we cannot, it is our responsibility to put forth the effort to make things right.

Note also that Solomon does not allow for deception on anyone else's part to discredit the process he suggests, in the need to take seriously the promises we've made. "By the words of your mouth" is not about what others have done, honestly or not, but what you have committed to, and what you will now need to find a way to escape.

The allusion to the hunted, the snared, does not imply anything untoward about your friend, in the same way that hunters and fowlers do not work in animosity, but in necessity, the ultimate fate of their quarry not being what is important, and it is not their fault that you have fallen prey to them, especially in that not being a bird or a doe, you actively contributed to the very circumstance you now find yourself in.

The nature of this advice is to foster a high-trust environment where fewer promises are made, but those promises are taken very seriously, and can be relied on predictably. In a low-trust environment, that any agreement was made would be irrelevant, the individual should just do whatever they please, including making or accepting promises with the intent to manipulate circumstances to maximize their own benefit, even if their "honor" is degraded, because among those without any "honor", what are you really losing with a forked tongue?

Instead we should only make promises that we intend to uphold, and for those which have been made in error, we are to submit ourselves to those we have promised in order to escape or satisfy our commitment. We are to be freed of our word by taking it seriously and submitting ourselves to those we gave it to in honesty.

In doing so, we set an example of behavior that grows our bonds with our friends, even if we cannot satisfy what we have promised, and that enables trust and communicates that, even when we realize we've made a mistake, we are still going to behave in a way which glorifies God. We are still going to show them respect due, whether they deserve it or not.

If that sounds hard to do, don't make bad promises in the first place.

Avoiding failure may be painful up front, but it is considerably less painful in the long run than trying to make amends after you've failed. Always easier to do the right thing first than rebuilding after the destruction of sin in our lives.