SEV Biblia, Chapter 15:17
Mejor es la comida de legumbres donde hay amor, que de buey engordado donde hay odio.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Proverbs 15:17
Verse 17. Better is a dinner of herbs ] Great numbers of indigent Hindoos subsist wholly on herbs, fried in oil, and mixed with their rice.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 17. Better [is] a dinner of herbs, where love is , etc.] What Plautus f443 calls “asperam et terrestrem caenam”, “a harsh and earthly supper”, made of what grows out of the earth; which is got without much cost or care, and dressed with little trouble; a traveller’s dinner, as the word signifies, and a poor one too to travel upon, such as is easily obtained, and presently cooked, and comes cheap. Now, where there are love and good nature in the host that prepares this dinner; or in a family that partakes of such an one, having no better; or among guests invited, who eat friendly together; or in the person that invites them, who receives them cheerfully, and heartily bids them welcome: such a dinner, with such circumstances, is better than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith ; than an ox kept up in the stall for fattening; or than a fatted one, which with the ancients was the principal in a grand entertainment; hence the allusion in ( Matthew 22:4) ( Luke 15:23). In the times of Homer, an ox was in high esteem at their festivals; at the feasts made by his heroes, Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Ajax, an ox was a principal part of them, if not the whole; the back of a fat ox, or a sirloin of beef, was a favourite dish f445 . Indeed in some ages, both among Greeks and Romans, an ox was abstained from, through a superstitious regard to it, because so useful a creature in ploughing of the land; and it was carried so far as to suppose it to be as sinful to slay an ox as to kill a man f446 : and Aratus represents it as not done, neither in the golden nor silver age, but that in the brasen age men first began to kill and eat oxen; but this is to be confuted by the laws of God, ( Genesis 9:3 Deuteronomy 14:4); and by the examples of Abraham and others. Now if there is hatred, either in the host, or in the guests among themselves, or in a family, it must stir up strifes and contentions, and render all enjoyments unpleasant and uncomfortable; (see Proverbs 17:1 Ecclesiastes 4:6); but where the love of God is, which is better than life, and the richest enjoyments of it; which sweetens every mercy, and cannot be purchased with money; and secures the best of blessings, the riches of grace and glory, and itself can never be lost; where this is, the meanest diet is preferable to the richest and most costly banquets of wicked men; who are hated and abhorred by the Lord, for their oppression and injustice, their luxury, or their covetousness; for poor men may be loved of God, and the rich be abhorred by him, ( Psalm 10:4 Luke 15:19-23).
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 16, 17 - Believers often have enough when worldly eyes see little; the Lord i with them, without the cares, troubles, and temptations which are with the wealth of the wicked.
Original Hebrew
טוב 2896 ארחת 737 ירק 3419 ואהבה 160 שׁם 8033 משׁור 7794 אבוס 75 ושׂנאה׃ 8135
