It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.
The verse pictures a buyer haggling over goods by insisting they are worthless in order to drive the price down and get them cheaply, then boasting about the bargain once he has gone his way with them. That trick lays bare how the desire for gain leads people to abandon justice and fair dealing. It exposes the dishonesty and scheming that fill the busy, noisy world of merchandise and trade, a world upon which Christ looks.
The same disparaging to secure an advantage and boasting afterward can also describe sellers, as when dealers used that dishonest practice while extorting money from pilgrims buying sacrificial animals for the Passover. It applies to publishers who undervalued authors and their work to turn them from their rights, then eagerly collected the revenue once the work had become their own. It means publishers tell writers that their books are worthless in order to buy the rights for a small sum, then after making only small changes exalt those same books to the highest to sell them, deceiving the people while treating truly valuable books with indifference and neglect. It also shows the dismissal of God's speaking as worthless, calling the warnings He gives through His Spirit of no value. That is done by those who have had truth line upon line and precept upon precept yet refuse to hear and receive warning, who hinder His work and cause with misrepresentation, falsehood and heresy, and who answer the Spirit's voice by declaring it of no account. It shows that the plans and devisings of those who bear none of the burden but stand aside as critics are worthless in God's sight, even when they have mingled their sentiments together and worked them up to perfection in their own estimation.
The verse pictures a buyer haggling over goods by insisting they are worthless in order to drive the price down and get them cheaply, then boasting about the bargain once he has gone his way with them. That trick lays bare how the desire for gain leads people to abandon justice and fair dealing. It exposes the dishonesty and scheming that fill the busy, noisy world of merchandise and trade, a world upon which Christ looks.
The same disparaging to secure an advantage and boasting afterward can also describe sellers, as when dealers used that dishonest practice while extorting money from pilgrims buying sacrificial animals for the Passover. It applies to publishers who undervalued authors and their work to turn them from their rights, then eagerly collected the revenue once the work had become their own. It means publishers tell writers that their books are worthless in order to buy the rights for a small sum, then after making only small changes exalt those same books to the highest to sell them, deceiving the people while treating truly valuable books with indifference and neglect. It also shows the dismissal of God's speaking as worthless, calling the warnings He gives through His Spirit of no value. That is done by those who have had truth line upon line and precept upon precept yet refuse to hear and receive warning, who hinder His work and cause with misrepresentation, falsehood and heresy, and who answer the Spirit's voice by declaring it of no account. It shows that the plans and devisings of those who bear none of the burden but stand aside as critics are worthless in God's sight, even when they have mingled their sentiments together and worked them up to perfection in their own estimation.