Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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2. Therefore rebuke him for his sin against God, because thou lovest him; endeavour to bring him to repentance, that his sin may be pardoned, and he may turn from it, and it may not be suffered to lie upon him. Note, Friendly reproof is a duty we owe to one another, and we ought both to give it and take it in love. Let the righteous smite me, and it shall be a kindness, Ps 141:5. Faithful and useful are those wounds of a friend, Pr 27:5,6. It is here strictly commanded, "Thou shalt in any wise do it, and not omit it under any pretence." Consider,
(1.) The guilt we incur by not reproving: it is construed here into a hating of our brother. We are ready to argue thus, "Such a one is a friend I love, therefore I will not make him uneasy by telling him of his faults;" but we should rather say, "therefore I will do him the kindness to tell him of them." Love covers sin from others, but not from the sinner himself.
(2.) The mischief we do by not reproving: we suffer sin upon him. Must we help the ass of an enemy that has fallen under his burden, and shall we not help the soul of a friend? Ex 23:5. And by suffering sin upon him we are in danger of bearing sin for him, as the margin reads it. If we reprove not the unfruitful works of darkness, we have fellowship with them, and become accessaries ex post facto--after the fact, Eph 5:11. It is thy brother, thy neighbour, that is concerned; and he was a Cain that said, Am I my brother's keeper?
18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children
of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord.
We are here required to put off all malice, and to put on brotherly love, Le 19:18.
1. We must be ill-affected to none: Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge; to the same purport with that Le 19:17, Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart; for malice is