Proverbs 2:4 If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures; Even in Job, the oldest book in the world, we read that the bitter in soul dig for death more earnestly than for hid treasures (Job 3:21). There is not another comparison within the whole compass of human actions so vivid as this. I have heard of diggers actually fainting when they have come even upon a single coin. They become positively frantic, digging all night with desperate earnestness, and continue to work till utterly exhausted. There are, at this hour, hundreds of persons thus engaged all over the country. Not a few spend their last farthing in these ruinous efforts. I heard a respectable man in Sidon declare that if he had been one of those fortunate diggers in the garden he would have killed all the rest and fled with the treasure out of the country. These operations are carried on with the utmost secrecy, accompanied with charms and incantations against the jan and other spirits which are said to keep guard over hid treasures. The belief in the existence of these guards, and of their dangerous character, is just as prevalent now as in the time of the Thousand Nights. Intelligent and respectable people have assured me that they have come upon slabs of stone, closing up doors to secret chambers, which no power on earth could remove, because the proper password or charm is lost. Others soberly assert that they have been driven away by terrible men, who threatened them with instant death if they attempted to force the doors. The secret deposits are always found by accident. (W. M. Thomson, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;WEB: If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures: |
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