Wonderful as is the separation of the pure metal from the dross with which it has mingled, there is something yet more wonderful in the divine discipline which purifies the good that lies hid, like a grain of gold, even in rough and common natures, and frees it from all admixture of evil. Compare Malachi 3:2; 1 Peter 1:7.

The fining pot is for silver - When silver is mixed, or suspected to be mixed, with base metal, it must be subjected to such a test as the cupel to purify it. And gold also must be purified by the action of the fire. So God tries hearts. He sends afflictions which penetrate the soul, and give a man to see his state, so that he may apply to the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, to destroy what cannot stand the fire, to separate and burn up all the dross.

The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold,.... Refiners of silver have their fining pots, in which they purify the silver from the dross; and goldsmiths have their crucibles to melt and purify their gold, by which assays of the worth and value of it may be made;

but the Lord trieth the hearts; there is no vessel, as Gersom observes, in which they can be put and tried by creatures; a man does not know, nor can he thoroughly search and try his own heart, and much less the hearts of others; God only knows and tries them, Jeremiah 17:9; The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions, render it by way of similitude, "as the fining pot is for silver", &c. as silver is refined in the pot, and gold in the furnace, so are the hearts of God's people, and their graces tried and purified by him in the furnace of affliction; the variety of troubles they are exercised with are made useful for the purging away of the dross of sin and corruption, and for the brightening of their graces, 1 Peter 1:7.

3 The fining-pot for silver, and the furnace for gold;

   And a trier of hearts is Jahve.

An emblematical proverb, which means that Jahve is for the heart what the smelting-pot (from צרף, to change, particularly to melt, to refine) is for silver, and what the smelting furnace (כוּר, from כּוּר, R. כר, to round, Exodus 22:20) is for gold, that Jahve is for the heart, viz., a trier (בחן, to grind, to try by grinding, here as at Psalm 7:10) of their nature and their contents, for which, of the proof of metals, is elsewhere (Proverbs 16:2; Proverbs 21:2; Proverbs 24:12) used the word (cf. בּחון, the essay-master, Jeremiah 6:7) תּכן, weigher, or דּורשׁ, searcher (1 Chronicles 28:9). Wherever the subject spoken of is God, the searcher of hearts, the plur. לבּות, once לבבות ecno ,, is used; the form לבבים occurs only in the status conjunctus with the suffix. In Proverbs 27:21 there follow the two figures, with which there is formed a priamel, as at Proverbs 26:3, another tertium comparationis.

The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts.

3. God only knows, as He tries (Ps 12:6; 66:10) the heart.

17:1 These words recommend family love and peace, as needful for the comfort of human life. 2. The wise servant is more deserving, and more likely to appear one of the family, than a profligate son. 3. God tries the heart by affliction. He thus has often shown the sin remaining in the heart of the believer.