PROVERB PRACTICALS  

 

Proverbs 25:24,  It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house.

Similar proverb: Proverbs 21:9,  It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.

This is one of the many "better than" proverbs.

It is natural to try to find the better thing, is it not?

When in the market for a car are we not careful to find the better car?

Don't we compare the specifications of the various choices in our purchases?

Ladies, don't you pick up the tomatoes in the grocery store to find the better tomato?

You look at the color, the consistency of color, the softness, the hardness.

What does the watermelon say to you when you sound it for ripeness? (forehead, chest or stomach sound)

Given alternatives the wise person wishes to know what is better.

God has made us to compare things between themselves and attempt to discover what is better.

God is good to us because he shows us in the proverbs what is better.

He knows our leaning towards the things of the flesh but he shows us a better way.

Listen to what God tells us in the Proverbs:

Proverbs 15:16,  Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble therewith.

Proverbs 15:17,  Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.

Proverbs 16:8,  Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.

Proverbs 16:19,  Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.

Proverbs 17:1,  Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife.

Proverbs 28:6,  Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness, than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich.

These proverbs show that the spiritual is far better than the material!

But our proverb for today is not the spiritual versus the material.

It has to do with a man finding peace in his life, even if it takes going on the top of his house.

But not only going to the top of his house, but finding the farthest corner of the roof of his house.

For:  It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house.

What choices! It is the same as the choosing between a broken arm or a broken leg.

Take your choice but you must choose!

It is the lesser of two evils, kind of choice.

If you can help it you never want to have a lesser of two evil choices.

Whatever you get it is going to be an evil!

But that is all we get to choose from in this proverb.

The man of this proverb has got himself in a fix!

Choice # 1, A brawling woman in a wide house

Choice # 2, Dwelling in the corner of the housetop.

God tells us which one is better but who would want either choice?

Who wants to be around a brawling woman?

Who wants to be present with a woman who quarrels without regard to those that may hear.

Who wants to be around a woman who has no sense of propriety.

A woman who has no sense of conforming to the established rules of decorum.

A woman who cares not if she makes enough noise and acts indecently in her anger to announce to the neighbors that she is not happy.

She speaks loudly and her words are not careful.

A man does not want to be around such a woman and he would rather be on top of the house in the farthest corner of the rooftop than to be near such a woman.

A man that is in such a position as to make this choice would easily choose the inconvenience of the wind, the rain, the snow, the lighting.

He chooses life on the rooftop so as to not hear the continual dropping of a contentious wife.

He pities his ears and therefore takes this drastic action to keep from hearing the endless noise from the mouth of this woman.

It is better to dwell without and live a life alone than to live within with the brawling woman of the household. SEPARATION!

On the roof there will at least be some comfortable weather days but he fears living below there will be no days when he will be relieved of her torment.

Proverbs 21:19 tells us that,  It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.

Is this why Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 22:8,  When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.

A battlement is simply a fence built at the edge of the typical flat roof common in the middle east.

A battlement is handy to the victim of a brawling woman.

He needs all the protection he can get from her uncontrolled tongue.

But this is the choice. A brawling woman in a wide house or Dwelling in the corner of the housetop.

But why is this the choice?

Because this husband got this wife in the wrong way, that's why!

Perhaps he got this wife from an unwise father who looked for financial union and financial gain for his son and his family.

Perhaps the man saw a pretty face and did not look at the maidens heart, did not examine her ways.

Perhaps the lust of the man burned and distorted his reason to see the real woman he was marrying.

Perhaps he cared little for spiritual things and took no thought in waiting on God to find God's choice for him.

So the wife came not from God but came from the world with full commitment in her to love the world and the ways of the world.

What does a man expect when he enters into a union under these circumstances?

A woman who makes him ashamed is as rottenness in his bones we are told in the proverbs.

The one in whom God intended for him to be his greatest pleasure becomes instead a bone cancer of his very being.

The very foundation of his being is being destroyed

She is supposed to be one flesh with him but instead her flesh is a constant grief to him.

God did not intend for the man to be alone and he has provided the most wonderful remedy for man.

He provides a life partner through the marriage union but like all things the Father expects his children to seek his face in the matter.

Wait on the Lord in this business of marriage.

Wait for his choice unless you accept the good possibility of having to choose the lesser of two evils.

That of living on the roof in the most remote of corners out of earshot of the brawling woman.

God is even gracious by giving us that help if we so find our self in that predicament.

But the child of God has no reason to find himself in that situation if he has faith to wait on God in the choice of a mate.