The High Cost of Foolish Pledges Text: Proverbs 20:16
Introduction: The Hard-Headed Wisdom of God
The book of Proverbs is a book of applied theology. It is where the high doctrines of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility meet the pavement of everyday life. It deals with money, with speech, with work, with relationships, and it does so with a bracing realism that often offends our sentimental, modern sensibilities. We prefer our religion to be kept in a stained-glass box, to be brought out on Sundays for an hour of quiet reflection. But the God of Scripture is interested in your bank account. He is interested in your business contracts. He is interested in whom you co-sign a loan for.
This proverb before us is a prime example of this hard-headed, practical wisdom. It is not a suggestion for debt-counseling; it is a command. It is a piece of divine instruction that cuts against the grain of our therapeutic, non-judgmental age. It addresses the fool, not with a gentle word of affirmation, but with a sharp financial consequence. The Bible consistently warns against the folly of becoming surety, of co-signing, of tangling your financial future with that of an unreliable person. Proverbs 6 warns us to deliver ourselves "like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter" if we have put ourselves in such a position. It is a trap, a snare.
But our verse today is not addressed to the fool who makes the pledge. It is addressed to the one who is lending to that fool. It is a command to be shrewd, to be realistic, and to protect oneself from the cascading consequences of another man's folly. This is not about being merciless; it is about being just and wise. It is about recognizing that actions have consequences, and that a man who is reckless enough to guarantee the debts of a stranger is a man who cannot be trusted. He has already demonstrated a profound lack of judgment, and you are being instructed by God not to become the next victim of that poor judgment.
We live in an era of endless bailouts, of "too big to fail," of erasing consequences for foolish decisions. The world believes in soft landings for fools. God does not. He believes in the hard ground of reality. This proverb is a dose of that reality. It is a lesson in biblical economics, which is to say, it is a lesson in living sanely in the world God made.
The Text
Take his garment when he becomes a guarantor for a stranger;
And for foreigners, hold him in pledge.
(Proverbs 20:16 LSB)
The Consequence of Reckless Surety (v. 16a)
The first clause lays down the principle with stark clarity:
"Take his garment when he becomes a guarantor for a stranger;" (Proverbs 20:16a)
Now, we must immediately square this with other biblical commands. The Mosaic law was very clear that you could not take a poor man's cloak as a pledge and keep it overnight, because that was his only covering (Exodus 22:26-27). That would be an act of cruel oppression. So, is this a contradiction? Not at all. We are not talking about a poor, unfortunate man who has fallen on hard times. We are talking about a man who has, through his own foolishness, made himself a high-risk borrower.
By becoming a guarantor, or surety, for a "stranger," he has violated a fundamental principle of biblical wisdom. A stranger, in this context, is not just someone you don't know, but someone whose character, reliability, and financial situation are unknown quantities. To pledge your own assets against the potential default of such a person is the height of financial imprudence. It is to gamble with God's provision. This man has demonstrated that he is not a trustworthy steward of his own resources. He is a bad credit risk, not because of poverty, but because of folly.
Therefore, the command is blunt: "Take his garment." This means you are to demand collateral. Serious collateral. In that economy, a man's outer garment was a significant possession. This is not a pinky-swear promise. This is a secured loan. The proverb is telling the lender, "Do not extend this man an ounce of trust. His actions have shown he is untrustworthy. If you are to deal with him at all, you must do so on the most stringent terms."
This is a form of discipline. It forces the fool to feel the immediate, tangible consequence of his rash vow. He wants to borrow from you, perhaps to cover the very debt he foolishly guaranteed. The wise response is not to enable his folly with an unsecured loan. The wise response is to introduce him to the hard reality that trust must be earned, and that he has just squandered his. You are not being cruel; you are acting as an agent of God's stern, pedagogical providence. You are protecting your own household from his foolishness, and you are giving him a sharp, practical lesson that he might, by God's grace, learn from.
The Stranger and the Foreigner (v. 16b)
The second clause parallels and intensifies the first.
"And for foreigners, hold him in pledge." (Proverbs 20:16b)
The parallelism here is key. The "stranger" in the first line is paralleled with "foreigners" in the second. Some translations have "a strange woman" or "an adulteress," which is a possible rendering of the Hebrew text and certainly fits the theme of folly. A man who gets tangled up with a seductive stranger is just as much a fool as one who co-signs for a financial stranger. In either case, the principle is the same: he has shown himself to be a man governed by impulse, not wisdom.
But let us stick with the rendering "foreigners." The risk is elevated. A local stranger is one thing; a foreigner, with no ties to the community, no local reputation to uphold, and the ability to disappear over the horizon, is another thing entirely. To guarantee the debt of such a person is to compound the folly. It is to be naive in the extreme.
The command is to "hold him in pledge." This is even stronger than taking his garment. It means to secure the debt with his own person or with a significant, binding security. The point is that the greater the folly, the stricter the terms must be. You are to deal with this man with your eyes wide open. You are to assume the worst-case scenario, because his actions indicate that the worst-case scenario is a distinct possibility.
This is the opposite of the modern credit score system, which often rewards the appearance of wealth over genuine character. The Bible's credit score is based on wisdom, faithfulness, and a proven track record. The man in this proverb has an F minus. He has publicly declared that he does not fear God or respect His economic principles. Therefore, you are to deal with him accordingly. This is not about xenophobia; it is about risk assessment based on revealed patterns of foolishness. The Bible commands us to care for the stranger and the sojourner, but it never commands us to be naive about the risks involved in financial dealings with those of unknown character, whether they be from our own town or from another country.
Conclusion: Wisdom is Not Naivete
What is the central lesson for us today? It is that Christian love and Christian wisdom are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are inseparable. It is not loving to enable a fool in his folly. It is not compassionate to give an unsecured loan to a man who has proven himself to be a financial train wreck waiting to happen. That is sentimentality, not biblical love.
Biblical love "rejoices with the truth" (1 Corinthians 13:6). And the truth is that this man is on a destructive path. The most loving thing you can do, if you must deal with him at all, is to enforce the strict consequences of his actions. Taking his garment as a pledge is a bucket of cold water to the face. It is a wake-up call. It says, "Your promises are worthless. Your judgment is shot. Reality is here, and it is demanding collateral."
This principle extends far beyond personal loans. It applies to our churches, our institutions, and our governments. We are not to underwrite folly. We are not to bail out reckless behavior without demanding fundamental change and strict security. To do so is to subsidize sin and encourage more of it. God's world is a world of cause and effect, of sowing and reaping. Our financial dealings ought to reflect that reality.
Ultimately, this points us to the gospel. We were all strangers and foreigners, alienated from God. We had a debt we could not pay. And Jesus Christ became our surety. He became our guarantor. But He did not do so foolishly. He did so as the infinitely wise Son of God. And what was the pledge? What was the collateral? It was not His garment, but His own life. He was held in pledge for us. On the cross, the Father "took his garment," stripping Him bare. He paid the debt in full. Because our wise and loving Surety paid the ultimate price, we who were the ultimate credit risk can be forgiven, transformed, and taught the ways of true wisdom. And part of that wisdom is learning not to presume upon grace, but to walk in the financial sanity and hard-headed realism of the book of Proverbs.