Proverbs 6:6

6 Go to the ant, O sluggard; and see, and emulate his ways, and become wiser than he.

Proverbs 6:6 Meaning and Commentary

Proverbs 6:6

Go to the ant, thou sluggard
That art become surety for another, and got into a snare and net, and yet takest no pains to get out. Or this may be directed, not to the surety, but the debtor; who, through his slothfulness, has contracted debts, and uses no industry to be in a capacity to pay them. Or, it may be, this has no connection with the former; but the wise man proceeds to a new subject, and to dissuade from idleness, which brings ruin on families, and leads to all sin; and, for the instruction of idle and slothful men, proposes the example of the ant, and sends them to it to learn industry of it ^F8; consider her ways;
what diligence and industry it uses in providing its food; which, though a small, weak, feeble creature, yet will travel over flints and stones, climb trees, enter into towers, barns, cellars, places high and low, in search of food; never hinder, but help one another in carrying their burdens; prepare little cells to put their provisions in, and are so built as to secure them from rain; and if at any time their corn is wet, they bring out and dry it, and bite off the ends of it, that it may not grow. These, with others, are taken notice of by Frantzius ^F9; and some of them by Gersom on the place; and be wise;
learn wisdom of it, and be wiser than that, as the Septuagint and Arabic versions: this is a mortification of proud men, that would be reckoned wise, to be sent to so despicable a creature to get wisdom from.

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FOOTNOTES:

F8 So Horace gives it as an example of labour----"Parvula (nam exemplo est) magni formica laboris" Sermon. l. 1. Sat. 1. v. 33, 34, 35. & Phocylides, v. 152-159.
F9 Hist. Animal. Sacr. par. 5. c. 8. Vid. Aelian. Hist. Animal. l. 2. c. 25. & l. 6. c. 43.

Proverbs 6:6 In-Context

4 Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber with thine eyelids;

5 that thou mayest deliver thyself as a doe out of the toils, and as a bird out of a snare.

6 Go to the ant, O sluggard; and see, and emulate his ways, and become wiser than he.

7 For whereas he has no husbandry, nor any one to compel him, and is under no master,

8 he prepares food for himself in the summer, and lays by abundant store in harvest. Or go to the bee, and learn how diligent she is, and how earnestly she is engaged in her work; whose labours kings and private men use for health, and she is desired and respected by all: though weak in body, she is advanced by honouring wisdom.