The Fool's Handshake: The Folly of Surety Text: Proverbs 17:18
Introduction: A World Built on Paper Promises
We live in a world that runs on debt. Our entire global economic system is a vast, teetering ziggurat of paper promises, IOUs, and leveraged futures. Nations borrow against the earnings of grandchildren not yet born, and individuals are encouraged from their youth to embrace debt as a normal way of life. Buy now, pay later. It is the modern mantra. And in the middle of this vast machinery of credit and liability, we find the practice of one man promising to stand good for the debts of another. We call it co-signing. The Bible calls it suretyship. And the book of Proverbs, with its characteristic bluntness, calls it folly. It is the act of a man who lacks a heart of wisdom.
The wisdom of Proverbs is not a collection of quaint, rustic sayings for a bygone agrarian age. It is the very mind of Christ applied to the nuts and bolts of daily existence. It is intensely practical, because our God is intensely practical. He cares about how you manage your household, how you speak to your neighbor, and yes, how you handle your finances. Our modern world, drunk on Keynesian delusions, thinks it has discovered a sophisticated way to build prosperity on the shifting sands of debt. But God’s Word warns us repeatedly that this path is the way of the fool, and it leads to ruin.
The issue of suretyship, of co-signing for a loan, is addressed no less than five times in the book of Proverbs, and every single time it is condemned as a snare and a trap. God does not stutter. When He repeats Himself, we had best pay attention. This is not a gray area. It is not a matter of Christian liberty. It is a matter of basic wisdom versus basic foolishness. To ignore this clear biblical teaching is not to be a risk-taker; it is to be a fool. It is to presume upon the future, to entangle yourself in affairs that are not your own, and to place your own household in jeopardy based on the uncertain character and prospects of another.
So as we come to this verse, we must see it as more than just financial advice. It is a diagnostic tool for the heart. The willingness to strike hands in pledge for another is a symptom of a deeper problem: a man "lacking a heart of wisdom." It reveals a failure to understand God's created order, the nature of personal responsibility, and the biblical path to true prosperity.
The Text
A man lacking a heart of wisdom strikes his hands in pledge
And becomes guarantor in the presence of his neighbor.
(Proverbs 17:18 LSB)
The Diagnosis of the Fool (v. 18a)
Let us look at the first part of the verse:
"A man lacking a heart of wisdom strikes his hands in pledge..." (Proverbs 17:18a)
The verse begins with a diagnosis. The problem is not primarily financial; it is cardiac. The man is "lacking a heart of wisdom." In Hebrew, the word for heart, lev, refers to the inner man, the seat of the will, the intellect, and the emotions. It is the command center of your entire person. To lack a heart of wisdom is to be fundamentally disoriented from reality as God has defined it. It means your thinking is not aligned with God's thinking. You are operating on faulty intelligence.
The fool in Proverbs is not necessarily a man with a low IQ. He can be quite clever in his own eyes. The biblical fool is the man who says in his heart, "There is no God" (Psalm 14:1), or, what is more common among us, the man who lives as though there is no God who has spoken clearly on matters like this. He leans on his own understanding. He trusts his gut. He follows the conventional wisdom of the age. And in this case, his foolishness manifests itself in a specific action: he "strikes his hands in pledge."
This phrase, "strikes his hands," refers to the ancient practice of sealing an agreement with a handshake. It was the legal signature of the day. It was a public, binding act. When you struck hands to become surety for another man's debt, you were legally obligating yourself to pay the full amount if the original borrower defaulted. You were, in effect, taking his debt upon yourself. You were making his liability your liability.
The Bible sees this as an act of profound presumption. Why? Because you are making a promise about the future that you cannot guarantee you will be able to keep. James rebukes this very attitude: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow" (James 4:13-14). When you co-sign a loan, you are saying, "I guarantee that at some unknown point in the future, if this other person fails to meet his obligations, I will have sufficient resources to cover the loss." You are making a vow based on a future you do not control, on behalf of a person you do not control. This is the essence of foolishness.
The Public Act of Folly (v. 18b)
The second half of the verse describes the nature of this foolish commitment.
"And becomes guarantor in the presence of his neighbor." (Proverbs 17:18b LSB)
He becomes a "guarantor," or surety. He is the back-up plan. The lender is not confident that the primary borrower can repay. That is why a guarantor is required in the first place. The lender is offloading his risk onto you. And the fool willingly takes it. He does this "in the presence of his neighbor." This is not a private, quiet mistake. It is a public entanglement. The neighbor here could be the borrower, for whom he is pledging, or the lender, to whom he is pledging. In either case, he is enmeshing himself in the financial affairs of others.
The book of Proverbs is relentless on this point. "Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm, but he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure" (Proverbs 11:15). Notice the contrast. Security is found in hating the practice of suretyship. Harm is the guaranteed outcome for the one who does it. Again, "Be not one of those who give pledges, who put up security for debts. If you have nothing with which to pay, why should your bed be taken from under you?" (Proverbs 22:26-27). The warning is stark. This is not a game. Your very livelihood, your own bed, is on the line.
Perhaps the most potent warning comes in Proverbs 6: "My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor... you are snared by the words of your mouth... Go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor. Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber; save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler" (Proverbs 6:1-5). The language is one of sheer panic and desperation. If you have been foolish enough to do this, your top priority should be to extricate yourself with all possible speed. You are a gazelle with its leg in a trap. Get out!
But Isn't It Loving?
Now, the objection immediately arises. "But pastor, isn't it loving to help a friend or a family member in need? My son needs a car for his job. My friend is trying to start a business. Aren't Christians supposed to be generous and bear one another's burdens?"
This is where we must distinguish between true biblical love and sentimental foolishness. Bearing one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2) is not the same as assuming another's liabilities. Biblical love is generous. If your brother has a need and you have the resources, you should give to him freely (Deuteronomy 15:7-8). If he needs a loan and you are able to provide it, you should lend to him without interest (Exodus 22:25).
Notice the difference. If you have $5,000 and your friend needs $5,000, true generosity might be to give him the money, or to lend it to him. In that case, you have calculated the cost. You know that $5,000 is what is at risk. But when you co-sign a loan for him, you are not risking a fixed amount. You are putting your entire financial future on the line. You are entangling yourself in a long-term contract that is entirely outside of your control. The bank now has a claim, not just on your friend, but on you.
True love does not enable foolishness. Often, the reason a person needs a co-signer is because the bank, whose entire business is assessing risk, has determined that this person is a bad risk. They have bad credit, or no savings, or a history of financial irresponsibility. For you to step in and say, "I know better than the bank," is not love; it is arrogance. You are not helping your neighbor by insulating him from the consequences of his own financial habits. You are enabling him. The most loving thing to do in that situation is often to say no, and then perhaps to sit down with him and teach him the biblical principles of stewardship, hard work, and saving.
The Gospel and the True Surety
This consistent biblical prohibition against becoming a surety for another man's financial debt serves to highlight the glory of the gospel in a profound way. For in the gospel, we see one who became a surety for a debt that was infinitely greater than any bank loan.
We were the debtors. We stood before the bar of God's perfect justice with a debt we could not pay. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). That was the liability listed against our name. We were spiritual bankrupts, lacking any righteousness of our own, with no collateral to offer. We were the ultimate bad risk.
And into this desperate situation stepped the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to His Father and, in effect, struck His hands in pledge for us. He became our guarantor. The book of Hebrews says that Jesus has become the "guarantee," the surety, of a better covenant (Hebrews 7:22). He took our liability upon Himself. He said to the Father, "Charge their debt to my account."
Unlike the foolish man in Proverbs, Jesus was not lacking a heart of wisdom. He is Wisdom incarnate (1 Corinthians 1:30). He was not presuming on an unknown future; He knew the exact cost. He knew it would cost Him the cross. And unlike us, He had the infinite resources of His own perfect righteousness to pay the debt in full. He did not co-sign our debt; He paid it off. He cancelled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2:14).
The reason we are forbidden from becoming a financial surety for our neighbor is that this is a role that only Christ can rightfully fill. He is the only one who can truly stand in the gap and pay the debt of another. For us to attempt it, even on a small financial scale, is to play the messiah. It is to take upon ourselves a prerogative that belongs to God alone. We are to be generous, we are to give, we are to lend. But we are not to become entangled as guarantors. That office is occupied.
Therefore, let us walk in wisdom. Let us order our financial lives according to the clear instruction of God's Word. Let us hate the striking of hands in pledge. Let us work diligently, save wisely, give generously, and owe no man anything, except to love one another. And let us give all thanks and praise to our great Surety, the Lord Jesus Christ, who saw us in our bankruptcy and paid a debt He did not owe, because we had a debt we could not pay.