Proverbs 27:5-6 Open rebuke is better than secret love.… The contrast is not between "open reproof" and love that is not real, but only affected, and assuming the garb and manner of what is real, flatters and imposes upon its object. This could not, with propriety, be called "secret love." It is professed love hiding enmity or indifference. "Secret love " is love which is indeed real, but which fails to speak out faithfully when it ought — when the good of its object calls for such fidelity; which shrinks from doing so because it is unwilling to inflict present pain; which thus connives at existing evils — silently allowing them to pass when they are such as ought to be noticed and reprehended. This is a false love, which really injures its object. (R. Wardlaw, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Open rebuke is better than secret love. |
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