6 My son, if you have put up security for your neighbour,
have given your pledge for a stranger,
2 if you are snared in the words of your mouth,
caught in the words of your mouth,
3 then do this, my son, and save yourself,
for you have come into the hand of your neighbour:
go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbour.
4 Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
5 save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
Kidner entitles this chapter as 'Pitfalls for the Unwary'. It divides into five unequal sections, seemingly disconnected with one another but, as we may see, having an un- derlying unity. The idea of being surety for another is one that figures prominently in Proverbs, as we see from 11:15, 17:18, 20:16, 22:26, and 27:13. To be a surety is to stand good for someone, to enter into a solemn pledge with a creditor that you will be responsible if the debtor (for whom you have stood surety) is unable to pay up at the ap- pointed time. It is to be a guarantor, and the phrase 'to strike hands' is like our modern idea of shaking hands on a deal. The warning is not so much against standing surety for another in any circumstances whatever as against heedless and ill-advised action that will lead to trouble. It is prudence that is advocated - not a prudence that banishes gen- erosity and makes one mean, but an attitude that refuses to succumb to an easy-going thoughtlessness that leads to rash expressions of generosity that one does not feel, and may be made from an ulterior motive - the desire to be thought generous, or affluent, to be thought the right kind of person, or such like. It is possible to enter into a suretyship of this nature 'through, an unconscious desire to 'act the big man', even when not in a position financially to do so. When this happens, becoming liable for the debt puts not only the man concerned, but also his family, into jeopardy. Not only so, it is bad also for the one for whom he performs this 'service', for this reason: it encourages him in irre- sponsible ways. When one thinks of the many hire-purchase agreements, for example, that go by default, and the financial embarrassment, not to say entanglements, caused to the hapless guarantors, one sees the practical wisdom of this warning; and the humilia- tion involved in extricating oneself in time from such liabilities is not too great a price to pay for learning prudence and sense for the future.