The warning against the wastefulness of the prodigal is followed by a warning as emphatic against the wastefulness of sloth. The point of comparison with the ant is not so much the foresight of the insect as its unwearied activity during the appointed season, rebuking man's inaction at a special crisis Proverbs 6:4. In Proverbs 30:25, the storing, provident habit of the ant is noticed.

Go to the ant, thou sluggard - נמלה nemalah, the ant, is a remarkable creature for foresight, industry, and economy. At the proper seasons they collect their food - not in the summer to lay up for the winter; for they sleep during the winter, and eat not; and therefore such hoards would be to them useless; but when the food necessary for them is most plentiful, then they collect it for their consumption in the proper seasons. No insect is more laborious, not even the bee itself; and none is more fondly attached to or more careful of its young, than the ant. When the young are in their aurelia state, in which they appear like a small grain of rice, they will bring them out of their nests, and lay them near their holes, for the benefit of the sun; and on the approach of rain, carefully remove them, and deposit them in the nest, the hole or entrance to which they will cover with a piece of thin stone or tile, to prevent the wet from getting in. It is a fact that they do not lay up any meat for winter; nor does Solomon, either here or in Proverbs 30:25, assert it. He simply says that they provide their food in summer, and gather it in harvest; these are the most proper times for a stock to be laid in for their consumption; not in winter; for no such thing appears in any of their nests, nor do they need it, as they sleep during that season; but for autumn, during which they wake and work. Spring, summer, and autumn, they are incessant in their labor; and their conduct affords a bright example to men.

Go to the ant, thou sluggard,.... That art become surety for another, and got into a snare and net, and yet takest no pains to get out. Or this may be directed, not to the surety, but the debtor; who, through his slothfulness, has contracted debts, and uses no industry to be in a capacity to pay them. Or, it may be, this has no connection with the former; but the wise man proceeds to a new subject, and to dissuade from idleness, which brings ruin on families, and leads to all sin; and, for the instruction of idle and slothful men, proposes the example of the ant, and sends them to it to learn industry of it (h);

consider her ways; what diligence and industry it uses in providing its food; which, though a small, weak, feeble creature, yet will travel over flints and stones, climb trees, enter into towers, barns, cellars, places high and low, in search of food; never hinder, but help one another in carrying their burdens; prepare little cells to put their provisions in, and are so built as to secure them from rain; and if at any time their corn is wet, they bring out and dry it, and bite off the ends of it, that it may not grow. These, with others, are taken notice of by Frantzius (i); and some of them by Gersom on the place;

and be wise; learn wisdom of it, and be wiser than that, as the Septuagint and Arabic versions: this is a mortification of proud men, that would be reckoned wise, to be sent to so despicable a creature to get wisdom from.

(h) So Horace gives it as an example of labour----"Parvula (nam exemplo est) magni formica laboris", &c. Sermon. l. 1. Sat. 1. v. 33, 34, 35. & Phocylides, v. 152-159. (i) Hist. Animal. Sacr. par. 5. c. 8. Vid. Aelian. Hist. Animal. l. 2. c. 25. & l. 6. c. 43.

As Elihu (Job 35:11) says that God has set the beasts as our teachers, so he sends the sluggard to the school of the ant (Ameise), so named (in Germ.) from its industry (Emsigkeit):

6 Go to the ant, sluggard;

   Consider her ways, and be wise!

7 She that hath no judge,

   Director, and ruler:

8 She prepareth in summer her food,

   Has gathered in harvest her store.

The Dech written mostly under the לך separates the inseparable. The thought, Go to the ant, sluggard! permits no other distinction than in the vocative; but the Dech of לך אל־נמלה is changed into Munach

(Note: Cod. 1294 accentuates לך אל־נמלה; and that, according to Ben-Asher's rule, is correct.)

on account of the nature of the Athnach-word, which consists of only two syllables without the counter-tone. The ant has for its Hebrew-Arabic name נמלה, from the R. נם (Isaiah, p. 687), which is first used of the sound, which expresses the idea of the low, dull, secret - thus of its active and yet unperceived motion; its Aramaic name in the Peshto, ûmenaa', and in the Targ. שׁוּמשׁמנא (also Arab. sumsum, simsim, of little red ants), designates it after its quick activity, its busy running hither and thither (vid., Fleischer in Levy's Chald. Wrterb. ii. 578). She is a model of unwearied and well-planned labour. From the plur. דּרכיה it is to be concluded that the author observed their art in gathering in and laying up in store, carrying burdens, building their houses, and the like (vid., the passages in the Talmud and Midrash in the Hamburg Real-Encyclopdie fr Bibel und Talmud, 1868, p. 83f.). To the ant the sluggard (עצל, Aram. and Arab. עטל, with the fundamental idea of weight and dulness) is sent, to learn from her to be ashamed, and to be taught wisdom.

Go to the {b} ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

(b) If the word of God cannot instruct you, learn from the little ant to labour for yourself and not to burden others.

6:6 Go - This is a distinct precept; and it is for the most part as needless to seek, as hard to find, coherence in the proverbs.

6-8. The improvident sluggards usually want sureties. Hence, such are advised to industry by the ant's example.

6:6-11 Diligence in business is every man's wisdom and duty; not so much that he may attain worldly wealth, as that he may not be a burden to others, or a scandal to the church. The ants are more diligent than slothful men. We may learn wisdom from the meanest insects, and be shamed by them. Habits of indolence and indulgence grow upon people. Thus life runs to waste; and poverty, though at first at a distance, gradually draws near, like a traveller; and when it arrives, is like an armed man, too strong to be resisted. All this may be applied to the concerns of our souls. How many love their sleep of sin, and their dreams of worldly happiness! Shall we not seek to awaken such? Shall we not give diligence to secure our own salvation?