Weekly Proverb 22

30:18 There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas and the way of a man with a maiden.

Eagle. If you have ever seen an eagle or any bird of prey flying high up, either in life or on film, you will have been struck by the amazing ease with which it is done. Perfectly adapted to its home ‘high in heaven’ this ‘Bird of the broad and sweeping wing’ has its throne ‘on the mountain top’ while its fields are ‘the boundless air’ (I am quoting John Gates Percival). Hang gliding is the nearest man can get to it.
Snake. A snake has no legs but it is able to quickly move along even rough ground. If you have ever walked across pebbles with bear feet you will appreciate the skill.
Emily Dickinson’s ‘Narrow fellow in the long grass’ is one who ‘likes a boggy acre, a floor too cool for corn.’ She speaks of him and tells how

when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once at morn,
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,-
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Ship. We know that by Solomon’s time navigation and shipping skills were quite advanced. The Phoenicians were the best at it at that time and Solomon made use of some of Hiram’s men for a fleet that was based at Elath, in the Gulf of Akabah on the Red Sea. It brought gold from Ophir. Other trading ships brought silver, ivory, apes and baboons. It is a majestic sight – a sailing ship gliding through the high seas. Even landlubbers can enter into John Masefield’s enthusiasm for ‘the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking’. What can compare with a

windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the seagulls crying.

A man with a maiden. The last reference is either to man’s wooing of a maiden or the act of love itself. Song of Solomon 2:8, 9, 17 is evocative Listen! My lover! Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills. My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look! There he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice … Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, turn, my lover, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the rugged hills.
What is the point of the comparison in each case? Some believe that the point of comparison here is the fact that in each case no trace is left. Probably the point is rather that these are all mysterious things that seem hard, almost impossible - flying, moving smoothly over rough terrain, sailing on the sea, a man seducing a maiden.

The application folows in verse 20 where the adulteress sees the act of adultery as just like having a meal. (This is the way of an adulteress: She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I've done nothing wrong.’) You think, I hope, that is a terrible thing to think and say. How can she live with herself? Yet for her it is no big deal. Yes, the first time she did it, it was probably quite something (think of a fledgling eagle, a young snake, a maiden voyager) but no longer. Her conscience has been seared. What about you? Are you so used to some sins that you no longer think anything of them? What danger! Recognise this and repent. Because he had never sinned the Lord Jesus always saw sin in all its horror, in a way that we do not. We must endeavour to see sin through his eyes.