Is more excellent than - Rather, the just man guides his neighbor.

The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor - That is, if the neighbor be a wicked man. The spirit of the proverb lies here: The Poor righteous man is more excellent than his sinful neighbor, though affluent and noble. The Syriac has it, "The righteous deviseth good to his neighbor." A late commentator has translated it, "The righteous explore their pastures." How מרעהו can be translated Their pastures I know not; but none of the versions understood it in this way. The Vulgate is rather singular: Qui negligit damnum propter amicum, justus est. "He who neglects or sustains a loss for the sake of his friend, is a just man." The Septuagint is insufferable: "The well-instructed righteous man shall be his own friend." One would hope these translators meant not exclusively; he should love his neighbor as himself.

The righteous (l) [is] more excellent than his neighbour: but the way of the wicked seduceth them.
(l) That is, more liberal in giving.

The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour,.... Not than his neighbour who is righteous also; for though one may have more excellent gifts than another, or a larger measure of grace; one righteous man may have more faith than another, yet not more righteousness; every truly righteous man is justified by the same righteousness, even the righteousness of Christ; and therefore one cannot be more excellent, considered as righteous: but the righteous is more excellent than his neighbour, who is ungodly and unrighteous, or however who has no other righteousness than his own; though his neighbour may be of more noble birth, and have even the title of "his excellency" given him; though he may have a larger share of wealth and riches; and though he may have attained a greater degree of natural wisdom and understanding, be a man of brighter parts, and of a larger capacity; yet, being righteous, he is more excellent than he: his superior excellency lies in his righteousness, from whence he is denominated; the righteousness of Christ, imputed to him, is far better than the best righteousness of his neighbour; it being the righteousness of God, his is the righteousness of a creature; a perfect righteousness, whereas his is imperfect; a splendid and glorious one, his filthy rags; a very extensive one, by which all the seed of Israel are justified, his such as not one individual person can be justified by it; an everlasting one, that will answer for him that has it in a time to come, his like the morning cloud and early dew that passes away; yea, the inherent righteousness of a righteous man, or the grace of Christ, imparted to him and implanted in him, that principle of holiness in him is greatly better than the righteousness of his neighbour a Pharisee; for this is true and real holiness, truth in the inward part, whereas the other's is only a shadow of holiness, a form of godliness without the power; this has the Spirit of God for its author, it is his workmanship, and a curious piece it is, whereas the other is only the produce of nature; this makes a man all glorious within, and gives him a meetness for heaven, whereas, notwithstanding the other, the man is inwardly full of all manner of iniquity, and has neither a right nor meetness for eternal glory. Nay, the external works of righteousness done by a truly righteous man are preferable to his neighbour's, destitute of the grace of God; the one being a course of obedience to the will of God, and a respect to all his commandments; when the other consists only of a little negative holiness, and of an observance of a few rituals of religion: the one spring from a heart purified by the blood of Christ, and the grace of the Spirit, and from principles of grace and love, and are done to the glory of God; whereas the other do not arise from a pure heart, and faith unfeigned; nor are they done sincerely, with a view to the glory of God: only to be seen of men, and gain credit and reputation among them; and in these respects the righteous man is more excellent as such than his neighbour, who at most and best is only externally and morally righteous: his superior excellency does not lie in nature, in which they are both alike; nor in outward circumstances, in which they may differ; nor in the opinion of men, with whom the saints are the offscouring of all things; but in the, esteem of Christ, and through his grace and righteousness; see Psalm 16:3; Some render the words, "the righteous explores his way more than his neighbour" (n); seeks and finds out a better way than he does; and is careful that he is not seduced and carried out of the why, and perish;
but the way of the wicked seduceth them; or causes them to err; it deceives, by promising the honour, pleasure, and profit, which it does not lead unto and give, and which they find not in it; and hereby they are led to wander from the way of the righteous, by which they attain a superior excellency to them.
(n) "justus explorat viam suam prae socio suo", Gejerus; "explorat pro compascuo suo justus", Schultens; "explorate ducit proximum suum justus", Cocceius.

The righteous is abundant; though not in this world's goods, yet in the graces and comforts of the Spirit, which are the true riches. Evil men vainly flatter themselves that their ways are not wrong.

more excellent--(Compare Margin); or, "more successful," while the wicked fail; or, we may read it: "The righteous guides his friend, but," &c., that is, The ability of the righteous to aid others is contrasted with the ruin to which the way of the wicked leads themselves.

26 The righteous looketh after his pastures,
But the way of the godless leadeth them into error.
In 26a no acceptable meaning is to be gained from the traditional mode of vocalization. Most of the ancients translate יתר as part. to יתר, as it occurs in post-bibl. Hebr., e.g., חבּה יתרה, prevailing, altogether peculiar love. Thus the Targum, טב מן הבריהּ; Venet. πεπερίττευται (after Kimchi); on the other hand, Aquila, active: περισσεύων τὸν πλησίον (making the neighbour rich), which the meaning of the Kal as well as the form יתר oppose; Luther, "The righteous man is better than his neighbour," according to which Fleischer also explains, "Probably יתר from יתר, πλεονάζειν, has the meaning of πλέον ἔχων, πλεονεκτῶν, he gains more honour, respect, riches, etc., than the other, viz., the unrighteous." Yet more satisfactory Ahron b. Joseph: not the nobility and the name, but this, that he is righteous, raises a man above others. In this sense we would approve of the praestantior altero justus, if only the two parts of the proverb were not by such a rendering wholly isolated from one another. Thus יתר is to be treated as the fut. of התיר. The Syr. understands it of right counsel; and in like manner Schultens explains it, with Cocceius, of intelligent, skilful guidance, and the moderns (e.g., Gesenius) for the most part of guidance generally. Ewald rather seeks (because the proverb-style avoids the placing of a fut. verb at the commencement of the proverb but cf. Proverbs 17:10) to interpret יתר as a noun in the sense of director, but his justification of the fixed ā is unfounded. And generally this sense of the word is exposed to many objections. The verb תּוּר signifies, after its root, to go about, "to make to go about," but is, however, not equivalent to, to lead (wherefore Bttcher too ingeniously derives יתר = יאתר from אתר = אשׁר); and wherefore this strange word, since the Book of Proverbs is so rich in synonyms of leading and guiding! The Hiph. התיר signifies to send to spy, Judges 1:23, and in this sense the poet ought to have said יתר לרעהוּ: the righteous spies out (the way) for his neighbour, he serves him, as the Targum-Talmud would say, as תּיּר. Thus connected with the obj. accus. the explanation would certainly be: the righteous searches out his neighbour (Lwenstein), he has intercourse with men, according to the maxim, "Trau schau wem." But why not רעהוּ, but מרעהוּ, which occurs only once, Proverbs 19:7, in the Mishle, and then for an evident reason? Therefore, with Dderlein, Dathe, J. D. Michaelis, Ziegler, and Hitzig, we prefer to read מרעהוּ; it is at least not necessary, with Hitzig, to change יתר into יתר, since the Hiphil may have the force of the intens. of the Kal, but יתר without the jussive signification is a poetic licence for יתיר. That תור can quite well be used of the exploring of the pasture, the deriv. יתוּר, Job 39:18, shows. Thus altered, 26a falls into an appropriately contrasted relation to 26b. The way of the godless leads them into error; the course of life to which they have given themselves up has such a power over them that they cannot set themselves free from it, and it leads the enslaved into destruction: the righteous, on the contrary, is free with respect to the way which he takes and the place where he stays; his view (regard) is directed to his true advancement, and he looketh after his pasture, i.e., examines and discovers, where for him right pasture, i.e., the advancement of his outer and inner life, is to be found. With מרעהוּ there is a combination of the thought of this verse with the following, whose catch-word is צידו, his prey.

Neighbour - Than any other men. Seduceth - Hebrews. maketh them to err, to lose that excellency or happiness which they had promised themselves.